"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…

“For this year is on Inquiry Learning

The focus this year for Literacy is Efeective Literacy Practise.

The focus this year for Maths is consolidating the NUMP programme.

Also we are working on SMS Etap across the school

And those of you with IWB’s have a series of day in the holidays to assist you in embedding this technology into your classroom practise.”

So what is the focus for this year?

Someone should mention to senior management that focus is the singular even though it ends with an ’s’.

How are staff supposed to fully focus on so many areas at once?

Is it just this school or do others have similiar long lists of focus (sic) ?

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.

Here is what I wanted to say…

I want to begin by thanking Jenny, who works in the next class and is the polar opposite of me, being ultra-organised. I must have driven her crazy with my last minute questions.

I wanted to thank Martin Genet, Principal, firstly for employing me in the first place and secondly for giving me the IWB which has led to so many developments in my professional life, most of which can be tracked through my blog archive.

I was somewhat disappointed with Amazon.com whose tracking system failed to deliver David Warlick’s book, Redefining Literacy for the 21^st century, a book I was gifting to the school.
I wanted to emphasise that it was not that I couldn’t deliver the curriculum in the ‘Peterhead Way’ it was more to the point that I didn’t want to. I believe that there are elements within the ‘Peterhead Way’ that are right for the 21^st century, for the community in which we serve yet there is an element within that philosophy that is resistant to change. I realise that change needs to incremental within any institution but I felt saddened to think that individuals who wish see the school community grow are not given the flexibility to try things out. As I identified in my recent podcast there is no excuse more burying our heads in the sand and ignoring implications of technology on the education system we are providing for the next generation.

My heart goes out to my principal, a true visionary and leader who is handcuffed to staff who are pillars of the school. I wish in some ways that I could have stayed, the school and the wider Flaxmere community is on the cusp of a wave of change…. I wonder if they will paddle hard and catch the wave or allow it to flow beneath them and allow the tide to drift them further into the ocean.

I am nervous of the future. Not having a job and relying on relief teaching, but I guess that change is good. You have to embrace it. As Steven Carden says: “Without hope driving our aspirations we become captive to whatever is happening in the present.”

“Sorry but I’m with Paul. There’s real confusion between  entertainment and education here. I certainly found Ewan’s presentation entertaining and – thank God – he actually had some understanding of the realities of the classroom which is more than you can say for most IT presenters/consultants who are miles away from large classes, excessive workloads/ indifferent resourcing, tired and and sometime drugged teenagers… I was really taken by the clip of the undersea French discussion made by the kids but it’s not hugely different from the past when kids did the same thing with tape recorders or by acting in a play. The important thing is that they were demonstrating that they could use a foreign language. That’s the real learning – not the mode of presentation. I’ve been to loads of ICT conferences this year and once you cut through the hype what you see are good teachers using ICT as a tool to support learning BUT we are constantly urged to admire the product rather than asking the tough questions like when they had all that fun did they learn anything? What? How do we know? Was it what we meant them to learn? Can they transfer that learning to other contexts? Too often we are asked to assume that because the kids appear to be having fun they are learning. This does not necessarily follow.
If you read the cognitive scientist, Steven Pinker (How the Brain Works; The Blank Slate) you’ll note that he argues that much human learning is intrinsic because we have evolved innate brain strucutres that make some things easy for us eg language, basic number, some psychology, physics as related to movement … BUT beyond that we don’t have innate abilities so we have to press into service other brain structures and that’s hard – things like reading and algebra require effort.

We have proven this to some extent in New Zealand because we damaged a cohort of youngsters with the assumption that all kids would “catch” reading if they surrounded with enough written language. NO! It worked with middle class kids who were getting constant “teaching” from their parents but a generation of working class kids who didn’t come from language-rich homes missed out. The Literacy Project is about teaching reading much more deliberately. Similarly, when we get all excited about the digital age when students will choose their projects of work we should remember that one of the big problems NCEA has thrown up is that given a free choice, teenagers are inclined to do as little as possible (80 credits and that’s it!). Sure there are some students who will find something that interests them and work single-mindedly on that but it would be a triumph of hope over experience to design an education system for Einstein.
The worst thing about this is that most kids will never know what they are really capable of because learning pedagogies are being replaced with a new vision that has the teachers as entertainers and the kids’ best friends not as a grown-up who is responsible for ensuring kids learn and who may not be an expert on Youtube but actually know a hellava lot more about life and learning than a 14 year old does. The uncomfortable thing is that teachers are jettisoning this, not because it’s better for kids’ learning (there’s no evidence whatsoever of that – it’s a classic example of the Goebbels technique )but because they want to be liked and valued and the people who produce and sell ICT hardware and software and the consultants who support the industry are telling them this is how they can become revered public figures. Who wouldn’t want that? We’re selling kids short if we continue to promise them that they will never have to struggle and sweat to get up the mountain because we are going to helicopter them to the top. The view is just as good so that’s all that matters, doesn’t it?”

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

Enabling the 21^st Century Learner: An e-Learning Action Plan for Schools 2006- 2010

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?

English

www.primaryresources.co.uk

www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/index.asp

www.tumblebooks.com

www.education.smarttech.com

www.funbrain.com

www.rainforestmaths.com (Click on Writing fun down the bottom right) 

Maths

Woodlands Maths

www.mathszone.co.uk/

www.smartkiddies.com (Aussie money)

www.mathletics.com.au

www.quiz-tree.com (Maths quizzes) 

Science

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/index_flash.shtml

www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx

www.durackss.eq.edu.au/ifiles/ifault.htm

www.primaryschool.com.au/

www.howstuffworks.com (watch out for popups)

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ 

Others

www.youtube.com

www.teachertube.com

www.video.google.com

www.promeatheanplanet/flipcharts.htm

www.blueletterbible.com

www.enchantedlearning.com

www.thecoloringspot.com 

I then spent all of Thursday panicked that I’d lost my assignment and power point presentation, and that I’d spend all night Thursday redoing it. Fortunately for me a guy called Andy from East Coast Computers came over, took out the hard drive and managed to pull the two documents off. Yippee.

It is only then that the real fun begins. I arrive on the Friday all ready to go, memory stick in hand and the promise of a borrowed laptop.

PRS is a great system…. Classroom response unit. Unfortunately there were a couple of features involved in embedding in Power point that I over looked. There can only be ONE asked question per page NOT the 2 or 3 I had planned, also the Question when it comes up creates a ‘toolbar’ across the top. Couple these two together and you have a rather wonky presentation document with custom animation going off when it shouldn’t. Ahhh!

We were only given an hour so, yep you guessed it, I didn’t get finished. Not only that but we barely got started on applying Higher Order Thinking to a curriculum area. Doh!

Finally I have a deligate say quite openly “I am bored now,” – I mean how should one respond?

Just for the record I, for one, was not bored, Freaked, yes, disappointed, yes, embarrassed, certainly.

Twas a chapter of disasters from start to finish.

Chrissy, on the other hand preformed incredibly well. Her wonderfulworldofwikis presentation was an inspiration to all who attended. She even had someone who created her own wikispace for the presentation she was giving immediately after. Go Chrissy.

Btw I have to mention that she called Vicki the “Wiki Queen”- well in made me smile at the time- probably just one of those ‘had to be there things.