“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?”

Skypetalkandwrite is a synchronous conferencing tool. In this book David Jonassen talks about ‘How..synchronous conferencing can be used as a mindtool.’ 

These tools are not new, back in the day there were MOOs,  MUSEs, MUSHs, MUDs some or all of these are still in use in various forms.  

Neither is skypetalkandwrite unique Microsoft Netmeeting,  CUseeME are two other examples on synchronous conferencing being used today and I’m sure there are others. 

What I’d like to focus on here is the value of the real-time communication which enables learners to become discursive members of a wider community.  As with any level of real time conversation it is important to ensure it stays on track. There is a fine line here to consider, with synchronous conferences being in nature social it is important to establish, and maintain, the purpose of the discourse to avoid the quality of conversation spiralling downwards.One of the key ways to do this is offer purposeful conversation, students require a project to engage with, an issue to debate or a problem to resolve. It is often helpful for students to share a workspace on line, it is good for then to see a product of their labours. This is where the ‘object’- the shared whiteboard provided by the TalkandWrite software comes in, it focuses the students attention on the project at had. Without a shared ‘object’ conversation can deteriorate very quickly (just like a real classroom)  

The single most powerful aspect of a synchronous conference is the immediacy. ‘Live interactions produce more motivation to contribute’ 

There are other applications out there, Web 2.0 is full of synchronous and asynchronous tools. I guess it’s what drives the social networking, the picking and choosing of applications to meet your communication needs. As I type this I was engaged in a conversation with Amanda about this very subject and I started out hoping to support my presentation with some theory but never mind. This is how I conversation went: 

Dragon09 says: Am writing a post about synchronous conferences…. any thoughts? 

Amanda says: i.e. k12 online chats?

Dragon09 says: yeah true…Skype too

Amanda says: or what Ewan talks about in his blog about being able to respond while he gives his keynote?

Dragon09 says: Sort of, but I think that is technically asynchronous cos you don’t need to be on at the same time like we are now

Amanda says: ah yes you would be right in that

Dragon09 says: Twitters an interesting one, its kinda both.. if you think about our ERO twitters yesterday, hours apart, but if you catch people on at the same time it can be…synchronous

Amanda says: definitely

Amanda says: I think that they synchronous element is important in a conference I went to Ulearn last year but didn’t have the contact other than the people i went to school with and some people i met. But after I met you and begun to have more contact with people within the conference via twitters it changed the dimension of the conference. It changed from being me thoughts between the speaker and myself to the possibility of having other peoples opinions i.e. the Helen Baxter presentation and the twitters and examples that were given in rebuttal or agreement with her presentation It meant that I was questioning and thinking during the keynote to a higher dimension than if I was just sitting there listening to HER. Make sense?

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

Well here it is:

I’ve just finished in a feedback session about Ulearn. Thanks to Derek and Amanda whose various blog postings I’ve been able to use as a feedback format, I would have asked but I knew you wouldn’t mind so much.

My Principal has given some ‘big picture’ ideas, focusing on the new national curriculum. Apparently we, as a school, are ‘a way down the road’. Which is great news and a little of a shock for me. We are already doing so much. Great.

I must confess a short coming of mine. I was NOT sitting in on ULearn ticking off all the wonderful things we are doing as a school.

 All that Mark Treadwell was saying about the new curriculum and Rosemary Hipkins about key competencies excited my principal no end.  He is a measured man and we have ERO on the horizon…. many of the messages at the conference had the potential to freak some folk out. There is, perhaps a bigger ‘digital divide’ between the potential of the ‘net and computers generally, and the realisation of that potential. Technology is moving so fast that education is struggling to keep up. we’ve not got 40 years to wait for implimentation (I think it was that long from the design of the OHP and its implimentation as a teaching tool in schools- but correct me if I’m wrong).

 The session finished with mutterings around the room, few of which I could hear, but one stood out: “When in ten years time it doesn’t work we will all just go back to how it was anyway.”

Hmmmmmmmm

Chrissy has a point where in New Zealand is there that is big enough? Core Education, or whoever organises stuff like this does their best I’m sure but I missed lunch after my presentation and the following breakout because of the positions of the various venues.

I feel like I’m moaning, but really I’m not. Honest. I’m just making the point that Chrissy has a point. Perhaps its just that venues that big and broad are just not needed, except twice a year Learning@Schools and ULearn?

But then I can’t believe that ICTPD is the biggest conference in NZ.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/87

I also need to thank Chrissy and Amanda for volunteering skyping me into Tony Ryan’s keynote. I was so disappointed about missing it and now thanks to Web 2.0, skype, twitter et al. I get two offers to let me listen.

Derek Asked for help with his closing remarks I thought I’d share these two….

“It is always good to get the bigger picture, we are not alone in our school, in our desire for progressing, personalising learning. Implimenting ICT in our schools. Its great to share ideas, try things out, get some direction and focus the mind.”

“Here there is space and time to become the reflective practisioners we wish we could be all the time.”

Thanks to Rachel for passing them along or was it Jane, someone’s battery died …Am writing this before he speaks so…. 

Tony Ryan its your responsibility as ‘part of the system’ – what are WE going to do about it…. No more moaning and complaining. Let’s just get on with the business we’re in…Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror spings to mind.

It has been great chatting with people on the same wavelength. Sometimes when I’m in school and I’m going on and on about the importance of technology and the changing model of classroom practise people either gla ze over or tell me I’m talking rubbish. Sometimes you just need a real person to sit beside and encourage each othe ron this journey. I also think it’ll be good for commenting and twittering, getting to know other bloggers in the blogoshere.

That reminds me, how do you spell blogosphere?Chrissy?

It came to mind today as I sat and listened to the Minister of Education.

I’m sat beside Chrissy and AllanahK and Jane, on skype chat with Rachel Boyd and Durff.

 If anyone should ask I felt like saying “No, I sat with some.”

Here’s why… 

Ewan made me think about who I am? Simon, Dragon09, teacher, father, husband, friend, son, brother??? (in no particular order, obviously) I am all of these things but not at once. I strip away teacher at the end of the school day. I leave ‘friend’ in the cupboard when I’m working, I’m ‘brother’ and ‘son’ to not so many people. I’m Simon when I blog and comment I’m Dragon09 on Skype, flickr, teachertube, twitter. 

Students are no different.  

Ewan talked about  

Secret places- mobile phones, SMS, IMGroup spaces- Bebo, facebook, taggedPublic spaces- Live Journal, blogger, flickr, photobucketPerformance spaces- Second Life, World of WarcraftParticipation spaces- marches, events, conferencesWatching spaces- TV, theatre, gigs 

He posed the question: Does your classroom have these?  

Secret places- passing notes (except when they get busted), probably exercise booksGroup spaces- Group work in this lesson to brainstorm……Public spaces- “Great, my work is on the wall” Performance spaces- End of year Musical, if you’re lucky, “….and you can be in the chorus, at the back”Participation spaces- PE? Playtime?Watching spaces- watching DVD at the end of term?  

There point he made was the audience size….. You write a story in your exercise book, the teacher marks it (one person sees it)You publish that piece for a class display (30 people see it) You publish it on the next ( potential audience is a billion) 

With emerging technologies comes emerging practises. 1.    Audience2.    Creativity3.    Differentaition4.    Autentic goals5.    Its not about the tech its about the teach 

These were his headings but the idea of emerging practises is something that has been playing on my mind and something I was hoping to explore while I was here.  

The changing pedagogy, really, truly, what does that look like. Ian Jukes talks about it, David Warlick does, Ewan eluded to it. But what does that look like in my classroom? 

Over the past 18months I’ve been playing around with this idea while encorporating ‘new technology’ in my classroom practise. There are several obsticles to this: 

Staff, senior management have been around for sometime. They know ‘their type of kinds’ and have a system in the school that ‘suits those kids…and has done now for 23 years, thank you very much. Why would you want to mess around with a system that is working”. It only appears to be working because on the whole the kids shut up, sit up and listen. “The results show they’re making progress”, but then could they be doing even better? 

There is a fear of failure. If you want to try having the kids in working on international collaborative projects and it all goes to custard well you’ve failed and you’re a miserable specimen of a teacher. NO you’re not, you reflect, you feedback you assess your practise and give it another go. But the reality is that there is a culture in education that status quo is better than experimentation. – If that were the case we’d be driving around in cars with wheels made out of slices of log! 

There is a lack of research into ‘best practise with technology’ so folk are unwilling to experiment without professional development ‘textbook’. But then the ‘textbook’ comes last of all after established research, which comes after experimental teaching. ICT is no longer taught as a discreet subject it is supposed to be ‘infused’ in all areas of the curriculum. Therefore it does not fit into the technology curriculum in quite the same way as woodwork, home economics and ‘soft materials’.  

Emerging technologies needs emerging practises and emerging practises needs darn brave teachers to step up.