Educating the Dragon

When I attended Jane’s podcasting workshop and produced my own bit of ULearn fluff. Imentioned to those who were unfortuate to sit near me in the session that “I’m sure Ze Frank presented at TED”. Never one for being 100% sure of anything technical like podcasts and vodcasts etc. I quickly shut up. Especially when my nod and smile for reassurance from Jane was met with a shrug.
Anyway, just for Jane and Sharon or CORE Education (the unfortunate individual who could not escape) here it is:

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

It is my privilege to introduce an new blogger to the edublogosphere. I was honoured to meet Amanda in a breakout at Ulearn. Please visit her site, encourage her by commenting, she’s putting all her notes from Ulearn on her blog, its well worth a read. 

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.

Well, the day is half over and its 4.00.pm All I have done today is my presentation on Skype Talk and Write. It didn’t go quite so well as I thought it would or could have but hey ho there you go.

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?

I don’t remember where the story comes from but a grandson asks his grandfather.“Were you hero in the war?” And the Grandfather answers “No, I just fought beside some.” 

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.”

I over heard a conversation while waiting in for lunch by a guy called Paul, he was saying that Ewan’s presentation didn’t hold anything for him. That what was said had little substance. You’re entitled to your opinion but I think you’re wrong. 

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.