Presentation to School Leaders

Roger at LIPS has a presentation incorporating elements of the shift happens/paying attention "series" presentation.

In Rogers words:

Readers may be interested to see the way that elements of the ‘Shift Happens’ series have been incorporated into this presentation for a group of school Principals, encouraging them to take a lead modelling role in the use of ICT, based on an imperative which is growing exponentially.

Good stuff Roger. Keep it up.

Ban the Internet !

On my cycle trip home from school today I got to do some thinking on the nature of our job, and the people we sometimes work with.

Thanks to a colleague (Tim) who passed this to me.

Teachers vote to ban internet | The Register

Phillip Parkin, general secretary of the Professional Teachers Association, told the organization’s annual conference yesterday that the nation’s children were being used as “guinea pigs” in a massive Wi-Fi safety experiment.

Parkin demanded an inquiry into the technology, pointing to a range of maladies which could be down to radio waves cooking the brains of pupils and teachers alike. These include loss of concentration, fatigue, reduced memory and headaches.

As everyone knows, no student or teacher in the UK ever suffered from any of the above before the Labour government started spending billions of tax payer money dragging the education system out of the 1960s/1860s [delete as appropriate].

and

So there you have it, the UK’s education system is in a state, but all will be OK if teachers don’t have to use computers, networks, or have to deal with any kids. Alternatively, summer holidays could just be extended to 52 weeks per year.®

Such an elegant solution to teacher incompetence and apathy...blame it on the internet!

How much more Dangerously Irrelevant can this profession become?

Briefing the Principals

I've been asked to present to a group of local small school principals regarding computers in schools and staff training.

I've put together a package that I feel provides a framework for understanding the issues surrounding "21st century skills".

To get things started I though I'd shake it up first. Four months old but good, and only 2 minutes. That ought to turn the discussion to getting these skills out to our kids.


So how do we get there?
Nets: the next generation: This is an excellent refinement of digital world skills including the important realm of citizenship skills (which is often overlooked in the discussion). Nets the next generation is presented in an easy to read, checklist style.

Leadership in an Online World: This document from the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth affairs, (MCEETYA) provides a framework which will enable leaders to plan for and support change. Australia and New Zealand are committed to this. Greg Whitby referenced a similar document in his recent post at blueyonder

School 2.0 map: get a free one here. School 2.0 is a brainstorming tool designed to help schools, districts and communities develop a common education vision for the future and to explore how that vision can be supported by technology.












This inevitably leads to the question: "This is all well and good, but how do I prepare my staff?"
That's easy... The Intel Teach program is excellent here, though some might say that excellent is understating things a bit.

"It is an exemplary professional development opportunity for educators committed to creating learner-centered, technology-enabled curriculum and instruction for the 21st century."

- ISTE* Seal of Alignment Report on
Intel® Teach Essentials Course, Version 10

Intel teach is a global program, and is being implemented in over 50 countries, but for examples of how it's working here in NSW (Australia) check out some examples of intel teach in NSW

Hopefully my presentation will encourage some schools (just one would be enough) to make a change.

So that's it. What have I left out? What do I need to leave out? As always, comments and tips are most welcome.

Reconstruction of Learning Experiences

As a smart, clever, literate educator reading this blog, you, like me, are actively trying to reconstruct the learning experiences of students to equip them for a digital, flat future. Why else would you read this?

I heard something this week that disturbed me, and will probably disturb you as well.

A teacher had taken some seven year old computers out of 15 months of storage ("too old for the network, need to be thrown out"...said the tech guy). So rather than throw them out, the teacher (with permission) reformatted them, installed some freeware/open source programs suited to the subject being taught, put them into a cluster in the back corner of the room and put the students to productive work.

Sure they weren't on the network, and there was no Internet. If the students wanted to save work, then it had to be to a usb flash memory drive. But they were productive! They were engaged. The students loved it, the teacher loved it, the other faculty staff found the idea so interesting that some of them took old computers out of storage and did similar things.

It lasted almost one week. Old structures and mechanisms don't take lightly to change. The machines were taken back, and were made ready to go into a lab. (Strangely they were now good enough for the task.)

So whilst some of us move forward, and engage the kids with whatever means (support, technology, funding) are at our disposal, it appears that some teachers still face a mentality that wants to put control back into the domain of the "keeper of the keys" (or the digital Taliban if you will).

It's almost as if there are forces at work to actively stop the sort of engagement that Greg Whitby (winner of the bulletin smart 100 award) talks about.

From Greg:

we're not saying every child needs only a computer to learn: come in, open up it's laptop time … They still need time with real people, to learn gross motor skills, and to use a pen and pencil, and to read, or to sit in a corner with a book or outside under a tree, and interact with teachers, as a socialising agent.

"But they need time to work in cyberspace. The traditional response has been to put technology into a computer lab, but it clearly doesn't meet their needs, because then you are deconstructing their learning experience, and it's artificial."

Greg Blogs at BlueYonder and will be speaking at the NSW Computer Education Group annual conference on July 1st and 2nd

Time4 Online

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach has a fantastic keynote presentation at the Time4 Online Conference. Its well worth checking out.

Thanks Sheryl, wonderful keynote. I get the feeling though that you are speaking to the converted.

We (your fellow conference participants) can master the stuff. We can join in online.

But it's many of our colleagues I'm concerned with. The reaction to a presentation like yours (in my experience) is that it divides the audience into those that "get it" and go off and bring their students into the global discussion, and those that find it "scary", which results in a fear of the changes, often leading to a withdrawal. (Machines are unplugged, networks are dismantled, students are disengaged).

It's less scary that way, and a sense of control can be regained.

This situation is sad. It's what I find really scary.

How can this reaction be overcome? At a class/school/region/state or national level?

Are Schools Losing the Game... (the power play).

How is your organisation dealing with web2.0?

Thanks to Scott Mcleod's halfbaked musings at dangerously irrelevant, I discovered this post from Wesley Fryer

Schools need to respond to the technological power play

The power play is a hockey term, I'm not sure what we would call it here downunder, but here is the part that stood out to me.

Helping teachers use technology effectively in the classroom means far more than simply providing a technician who can keep computers,
printers, networks, and content filters working appropriately.
Addressing instructional technology support needs also means:

1. Having administrators who understand the importance of studentsusing technology to not only CONSUME content, but also appropriately PRODUCE and SHARE content on the global stage of the Internet in safe and constructive ways.
2. Having administrators who expect and require teachers to REGULARLY ENGAGE students in Internet-based collaborative projects throughout the school year, not just at the end of the year when required assessment tests have been completed.
3. Providing CERTIFIED TEACHERS to serve as mentors, coaches, demonstration teachers, and hand-holders to other teachers less saavy and with less initiative when it comes to instructional technologies.

We need more than technicians providing technical support in our schools, we need leaders and mentors, (and the budgets to fund them). These mentors need to come on top of adequate technical support. According to Wes Fryer again

- school tech support levels are 10% of industry standards (1 onsite tech for 50-70 machines, that is considered adequate in business, where needs tend to be less complex)

Are we wasting money providing more technology to schools, without giving technical support to that same technology, along with supporting the "upskilling" of teachers?

A final point. Wes, when speaking to teachers a a recent conference states:

I heard several teachers relate stories of “technology out of control” in their schools, where part-time teacher-aides (responsible for staffing school computer labs) were unable to prevent students from accessing pornography from school computers, bringing pornography and other objectionable images from home on USB flash drives, and printing many of those images on the school printers.

Probably a common scenario in many schools accross the globe. Another blog I read, Parallel Divergence, raised this issue last October in the post The trouble with web2.

We've all heard the hype on web2, how is your organisation dealing with it?

Why Don't School Directors Blog? part 2

A response by the School Director (superintendent) to Kim Moritz's challenge.
Quite sensible and eloquent really.

Superintendent Rinaldi gives many reasons for not entering the blogosphere. But what of the principals that wont (refuse to) even use email?

Why Don't School Directors Blog?

Here is a great story.

Kimberly Moritz challenged her superintendent to start a blog

How many of our decision makers leave it up to others to try and explain their decision? Wouldn’t it be great if they could blog it themselves. The community would have one version of a story and minimize confusion. It might even eliminate the gossip.

How many of your/our regional directors have a blog?

What about the principals out there?

Do you see a need or necessity? Is blogging still confined to the domain of innovators and early adopters? (aka classroom teachers).

It seems that so many of our communication channels are still firmly pre web, (what's web2.0?). How is that to change?