Educating the Dragon

I’ve hit the road again today, spent all afternoon travelling from Hastings to Tauranga. I forget how beautiful NZ is and its not until you spend sometime on the road and actually look around as you go that you fully appreciate the scenery.

But that is not why I’m posting today. It is the middle of the school holidays and I have Breathe Technology Staff meeting in the morning. I’ve spent a lovely evening with my boss, her partner a colleague of mine and the Easiteach trainer. More of that tomorrow I guess. Sometimes it is really difficult to get out the conversation about Education but we did hit upon the topic of internet dating.

From what we talked about it seems to be;

a) a) a lot more common now and

b) b) a lot safer.

I was wondering if that were true or not or whether it is just our perception of it? If anyone has facts and figures on such things please comment.

My other question was surrounding cyber safety and the ‘internet dating’ thing. I fear that the Internet-dating will be the sex-ed of the cyber safety education programme. I remember the thoughts of:

‘Let’s not talk about sex in the classroom.’

‘If we start talking about it, more students will experiment with it and we’ll have a bigger social problem than we already have’

So my question being where in the ‘cyber-safety curriculum’ does internet dating appear?

Another successful collaborative project.

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!!

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?

My boy’s nearly 2 now and we went to see the local private boys school for Look-See. Hereworth is in Havelock North, NZ. Very traditional, values centred. ‘Growing boys toward manhood’ kinda flavour. I was vert impressed with the grounds, uniform, manners of th boys, opportunities available even when I got down with the Junior Teachers and talked reading plans and frameworks, provision for special needs and gifted and talented I remained impressed. But then I got thinking about the whole ‘boys-only’ education what are the pros and cons to that approach? At what age and stage does it have most impact, for character development and academics. Thoughts on the subject are most welcome.  

We just had it confirmedfor our school that thelast day of this academic year is 20th December. There was some confusion over whether other schools in New Zealand are finishing on that day, earlier or later. I would really appreciate comments from anyone who knows the last day of their school year. I can’t believe their is ley-way in this. But maybe that isjust my UK background speaking.  Please leave comment or email me direct. Thanks.