I want to talk about Explorers, I feel we are all explorers in new ICTs. We’re the ones experimenting in the classroom. The edublogosphere is filled with cases of people explaining and reflecting on their ever changing practises with ICT in their classrooms. We’re dealing with real experiences, real students, real observations. But what makes our observations valid? Are we engaging in critical thinking and and reflecting in the right way? Jane Nicholl’s work on Oral Language and podcasting is perhaps a good example. Many of Vicki Davies reflections are critical in nature. But much of our, mine most of all, observations and reflections are low level and classed by academia as ‘anecdotal’. My concern lies in the fact that we are all at the cutting edge, where today’s technologies meet today’s students. But the quality of our reflections, perhaps, needs to go up a notch as Falloon comments “ there has been little conclusive empirical research to prove” (Falloon, 2003, p. 23) that ICT enhances outcomes for students. If academia is dismissing our contribution as ‘anecdotal’ then that filters through to policy makers and curriculum designers. We have an opportunity to drag the educational perspective out of the industrial age and into the 21^st century, as noted by David Warlick , and others.

So do we need to be thinking about our practise in terms of Jonassen’s Mindtools, or Atkin’s papers? How relevant are these theoretical perspectives? Do we need to consider such things to draw our experiences out of the micro level and up to a macro level? Is that our job or is someone else going to pull all this anecdotal material together for us to present the 21^st century classroom perspective?  

If not us, me, then who?

Falloon, G. (1999). Developing exemplary practice: Why are some teachers better at IT than others? Computers in New Zealand Schools, 15 (1), 19-23.

concepts in recent times. I have a few issues I wish to rise regarding this piece of writing, particularly in light of how it is being used throughout the world today.

Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.

 Marc begins with this statement, but is it true? Have our students really changed that significantly? What is Marc basing that statement on, there is no reference to research carried out or other reading he has gleaned that piece of information from.

Today’s students – K through college – represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age.  

What a sweeping generalisation, who are they, and by ‘they’  is it really all of them, most of them, those that ‘matter’, who matters anyway, how do you measure that? So many questions.

Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV).

 Where have these figure come from? Is a simple question of multiplying up from hours in the day, who is this based on?

Says Dr. Bruce D. Berry of

Baylor
College of Medicine.  

Who is Doctor Bruce? What is he a doctor of? What research is he basing his statement on? I quick Google search for the man in question simply refers to Marc’s other work. It was written six years ago, I guess we’ve all moved on since then.

On page 2 of  Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Marc talks about digital language and how us ‘immigrants’ have to learn ‘digital’ like a second language…. And a language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain. Does it? What scientists? Is learning to work an ipod really the same as learning a second language? Perhaps Marc is taking his analogue a little too far?

 Digital Immigrants don’t believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music, because they (the Immigrants) can’t.  

Is this statement really true? I know the second part is (for me anyway) but that doesn’t mean the first part is. Where’s the study to back up this claim?

My own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content.  

It is good to here Marc talk about his own preferences and what an innovative way of going about teaching. Good on you Marc, My issue, rather is the way his statement has been taken by companies, educators and motivational speakers to turn the realm of education into one big game.

Does this mean that we can ignore Marc’s work? That is simply an interesting picture and can be dismissed out of hand? I would suggest the answer is still NO.

Firstly, if you sat there nodding while you read thinking, either “yep, that’s my son/ daughter” or “those are my clueless teachers he’s talking about.” then that has some merit, and it gains more weight if lots of folks around the globe are nodding away with you and me.

Secondly, since its publication  the title of the book has:

 24,000 hits on Google 251 blog posts about “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” on Technoratithe most recent on my writing this being 13 hours ago. That is 6 years after its publication. 

Finally, when read in the contexts of books such as Growing Up digital by Don Tapscott or The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman it is given some weight, reflected, as it were from these publications. 

Is it a scholarly work? Probably not. Is it a well written opinion piece? Perhaps. Does it serve as a wake up call for academia and governments to take a serious look at education? Most definitely.

It finally happened, in little old
Flaxmere, New Zealand. The Kid’s Conference.

Kimi Ora, Flaxmere Primary,
Iron Gate and Peterhead came together to showcase what they have been doing with ICT over the past couple of months. We had groups of children demonstrating how Google SketchUp, Art Rage and PowerPoint worked, we had some working with a green screen and my kids showed off their Talk and Write work with Taradale Intermediate School.

What a buzz, kids sharing with kids, teaching each other and enthusing about the possibilities of these applications and tools.

Sitech were on hand to add their input into proceedings and provided additional hardware so thanks for that Kevin.

But it was the kid presenters who really made the day. I was so proud of them all. There enthusiasm for it all practically brought tears to my eyes.

Just a thought from the day, part of a discussion I had with team members down there.

We were talking about how important it is that ALL levels of education jump on board with the new move to Web 2.0 otherwise I’ll enthuse my 7 year olds and get them thinking about broader contexts and incorporating technology use in their work but then they have a further 11 years of School 1.0 to have all that drained from them. Fortunately that is not happening in Flaxmere as the whole Cluster is part of the Sitech Champion Schools Programme, dedicated to teacher PD in the area of technology, so as teachers across the year levels become up-skilled our kids will continue to have those technology opportunities in their learning. (for other pictures from the conference click here)

I sense they are quite privileged in that regard. Are other areas in
New Zealand/ around the globe experiencing what we are in Flaxmere?

I was culling my folder entitled “Web discussions” where I store past posts and bits and pieces I’ve cut and pasted for use later on. I came across the words included in me second video presentation; I think I got them off Durff’s Blog, if it wasn’t from there it was someone similarly thoughtful, observant and insightful, but it sounds like Durff to me. Anyway here it is entitled: “School 1.0 v School 2.0 “On your marks…””

Teaching Sagittarian will laugh at me as I still am unable to embed my own videos and Miguel of Around the Corner will no doubt roll his eyes at me as, yes, I used PhotoStory3 yet again. I’m not sure this presentation is going to give Vicki Davies the ‘chills’ like last time, but them I feel this is more of a Die Hard 2 moment rather then a Godfather II. What do you think?

Download: School 1.0 v School 2.0 “On your marks…”

Teaching Sagittarian check this out, I DID IT! (Thanks to the new embed feature for WordPress on TeacherTube )

Here I am on my holidays. A chance, finally to catch up with Wes Fryer’s podcast142 on the speed of creativity website. The one I listened to last night rang true with me as Roger C. Schank spoke about his view of education. All the notes, wikis, blogs, presentation material etc are all available here from on the Speed of Creativity website so I won’t bother re-linking them all to here as they are 2 clicks away.

I wanted instead, to dwell on the concept he was dealing with in terms of creating valuable learning scenarios and not wasting time with the ‘just in case’ teaching that is so prevalent in our education system today.

David Warlick, when he was here for the Learning@schools conference talked about the fact that in New Zealand so much freedom is given over to New Zealand schools and not dictated from the ‘district’ or governmental level that the move towards School2.0, Classroom2.0 and Library2.0 stands a good chance of implementation in NZ schools. I think he was referring to where the purse strings are held. Which is true. However, if I were to share this podcast with staff and colleagues I am sure that there would be much puffing of cheeks and shaking of heads. A fear of unknown sits within our schools…. Even if the principal is progressive and forward thinking there are still those at the senior or middle management level had would vocal in their advocating for status quo.

Roger gave the quote from John Adams “There are two types of education, one will teach how to make a living the other will teach us how to live. “

I happen to agree. What I am most pleased about is that Roger does not leave us high a dry, with the idea that what we are doing is archaic but offers thoughts and suggestions as to how the curriculum for the 21^st Century should look. He stated:

“Writing

Speaking

Reasoning

Getting along with others

Making and executing a plan

Understanding what tools are available to you

Making use of known principles.”

 These are the core competencies. Regardless of whether you are teaching social studies, Science, or electrical engineering, those competencies above are the skills you will need.

So back to the
New Zealand way…. Like John Adams said we need to teach children how to earn a living and how to live, but then it’s very easy to ignore
Adams’ logical approach to education: Him being:

1. So far away
2. American
3. Dead.

But do any of those three reasons make him wrong?

I finally finished it, Don Tapscott’s Growing up Digital book. It cost my $5 in library fines but I finished it.

I use the word finally not to say I battled through the book and it was awful, quite the opposite, it was amazing. I say finally because I’m such a slow reader anyway and this term in school so busy I rarely had chance to pause and pick up the book let alone read it…. Less about me, more about the book.

It clarified several things for me and made raised a few questions too.

1.My Generation

I realised while I was reading this, that my generation “Baby-Bust” according to the book, is a light-weight generation, the fag end of the Boomers so to speak. The situation for me in the
UK when I left school has just been put into some sort of perspective by Don’s writing. There was a reason why jobs were scarce, why finding Saturday jobs was somewhat of a ‘mare even. The experience of my generation was shaped by neither the news cycle of the TV nor global networking. I sat in the in-between time where TV had turned banal and Compact Discs had only just come onto the seen. I relate to the Wedding Singer if anything.

2.Their Generation

Then it got me thinking about my current children, whether it is just the children in my class or those in my primary school. According to Tapscott the Net Generation began in 1980 and runs to 1997 or something, when the book was published. You could argue that the Net Gen continued to the current. Either way the impact of the Net Gen on current school age children could be similar to that of the Baby-Bust. Maybe the current cohort is not Net-Gen but Net-Bust. By the time my class reaches 18 and ready for ‘work’ the oldest Net-Gen will be 38 and filling the jobs, with experience as well as expertise in use of current Net-Tools. What will that mean for my class? They will have to adapt further, be quicker, smarter and even more determined than the Net-Gen. How is that going to impact on my teaching today, tomorrow, next week? I introduced my kids to the concept of a wiki. Check out my class wiki. It is basic, but it has them communicating, sharing and presenting their work online. I’ve begun to look at what ICT teaching looks like for the Primary (Elementary) level. All thoughts and ideas in the comments section below please.

I am looking forward to reading wikinomics and other books. Again suggestions below please. The impact this technology is having on the education of our young people is huge. I would hate for my class to be placed in the have-not category that Tapscott talks about. Does the responsibility for whether they are or not lie with the student, the parent or the teacher?

Ps. I wish someone would teach me how to embed vodcast and podcast into my blog. I look like such a newbie, but I just can’t figure it out.

Just copied this off David Warlick’s site.(sorry David, if I could ping it I would)

From Three Bullet Dave, I would suggest:

• Economy — It’s global, constantly changing, and it increasingly relies on rich information skills.
• Our Customers — They are tech savvy, effective collaborators, who are accustomed to a rich, interactive, and dynamic information experience.  They know how to play the information.  They need to learn how to work the information.
• Our Schools — The very nature of information has changed.  It is networked, digital, and overwhelming, and it can’t be contained in any folder, book, bookshelf, library, or school.  How can we redesign schools (reinvent education) to address and harness this new shape of information?

It just got me thinking that the issues my school face are bigger than my school board- They are faced by educators and policy makers on a global scale

1. Let’s assume that all our kids are hot-wired like so many of the kids today are. They are having to ‘power-down’ as the cliché goes when they have to come to school. Their 1000 decisions a minute has turned into 3 per hour. Not good. Are we challenging their thinking? No Are we directing their learning to engage in the digital economy or simply to sit on the fringe, on the dole watch sky sports and playing Halo4. why can’t our kids be ones designing the game, creating that alternate universe? With our sit down, listen up, follow the rules attitude we setting them up to be fruit pickers Watties packers, mashers or mincers. What happened to shooting for the stars and landing on the moon? Lets take a long hard look at these kids futures. The jobs that many of them could potentially get have not even been created. The kids in my class will retire in 2065. Its gonna be whole different world out there then.
2. Ok take lets take a different tack. Let’s assume they are not wired. Some of these kids don’t get access to breakfast at home let alone internet. If they don’t know stuff about the possibilities we can view it in two different lights. Firstly we could say “Hey let’s give them a basic education cover the 3 R’s tick the boxes and move them out Boy’s /Girl’s High let them worry about the future. Or we could say, if these kids are going to get any step up, assistance, helping hand, its going to be from us, the school. We have a primary responsibility for preparing these kids for a their future. Its not a future that we can see right now, not like back in the day, when  I could look at my dad going to work and see my life.  Theirs is future of possibility and wonderment, if they are prepared for it.

So many kids want out. They see the rugby players and the netballers and the movie stars and they think that’s the route to a brighter future. They don’t see the couple of geeks having sold Youtube for $1.65 billion US.

I was born in 1975, graduated in 1993. Back then the world was full of boomers- The boom went from 1945 through to 1968. That’s children being born. By the time I graduated all the jobs were gone. Even the teaching profession had a glut of staff. I remember going for several interviews where they had 65 job applicants per place. I was a baby bust- Tail end of the boom. All the jobs are take.

Well let’s go on 30 years the Net-Generation peaked in 1991.  Since then the birth rate globally has fluctuated. Our kids today could well be looking for a job in the Net-Bust era. What’s going to be the impact on them? Few jobs. They are a going to have to work smarter AND harder to beat those Net Generation kids with years of experience under their belts.

Whichever is the scenario 1 or 2 for our kids we have to act. How we go about it will look very different depending on those children’s access to the Net. The Net is opening up a whole world of possibilities out their, gaming and chat rooms is only the beginning. What are we going to do about it?

These figures are correct to the best of my ability. If you know better please comment.