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?

Did You Know? 2.0

Karl Fisch (assisted by Scott Mcleod and Xplane) has posted the reworked "Did You Know" presentation at YouTube. In my opinion this is a much better version than the original.
The beautiful but unobtrusive design allows the ideas embedded in the presentation to come to a much greater prominence over the glitz and flash that most presentations have a tendency to become.
Well done to those involved in its production. It's a piece that I'll be using not just to share the idea, but as an example of effective presentation style.

A laptop for every student?

Well! There's a suggestion! Scott at Dangerously Irrelevant has costed out what percentage of the US GDP would be required to provide a laptop to every teacher and student.

Does every student need a laptop?
Would classrooms be more relevant if every student had a laptop?
Would trading in paints, brushes, glue, scissors , sporting equipment and even musical instruments, for laptops make classrooms more (or less) relevant?
At what age would a student recieve one? The requirements for year 1 are very different to year 12.
Could the money be spent more productively elsewhere? (Building maintenance, paints, brushes, transport, health, water resource management, rollout of infrastructure.)

Speaking of infrastructure...would the current infrastructure that's already in place cope with such a massive hit?

Thanks Scott. As always, you got me thinking.

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?

Key Question

Rather provocative Scott.



Dangerously Irrelevant: Another key question

If individuals at home can see the transformative effects of digital technologies, and corporations can see the transformative effects of digital technologies, why can’t schools? Are they just incompetent, dunder-headed organizations compared to other institutions or is something else going on? In other words, why WOULDN’T schools see the same transformative effects of technology that we’re seeing in most other sectors of society?

Sound Familiar?

I do understand the arguments for child safety, duty of care, and such, but when schools/teachers are having success with an innovative program, and the child safety issues are covered as much as possible, then why continue with the ban and block culture?

I am pleased to say that in NSW schools, projects are considered on their merits, and are unblocked,trialled and monitored. This is a good start. Conditions apply, but those conditions are usually insignificant when compared with the alternative...the loss of the project completely.

How does your school deal with the issue of blocking harmful sites?


Here is a take on the situation from Dangerously Irrelevant.
Dangerously Irrelevant: Principal blogging not allowed

This tale’s been told before. Technology coordinators who are more concerned with disabling than enabling. Technology personnel that we would hope would be progressive, forward thinkers regarding digital technologies but instead are regressive gatekeepers. Teachers and administrators that try to move into the 21st century but run into the brick wall of supervisors or support personnel. Superintendents that allow such situations to occur rather than insisting that their district figure out how to make it work (like other districts have). Educators that fail to understand that the world around them has changed and that their relevance to that world is diminishing daily.