The one that struck me amongst this set of lovely thoughts about teaching was the guy who said “I didn’t learn how to speak Spanish, even though she was my Spanish teacher, but I did learn how to be be myself”.

When I look back at the teachers who made an impression on me, I do not remember what they taught me, I remember how they treated me. I remember the ones who I felt respected by and who treated me as a whole person, and I have awful memories of a few who were unjust.

The unexpected impact that a teacher can have is quite awesome – we never know how much impact a small few words may have on the students we talk to, or how our simple actions can affect them. The simple acknowledgement of the importance of something they say, a recognition of effort, leaving them alone when they need space or providing an encouragement or affirmation at a time of confusion.

We should never underestimate the potential of the impact of any of our actions or words. Many may forget us, but you never know what that spark is ready to ignite.

Thanks to @melcashen for tweeting this video

Well, we have finally taken the plunge and thanks to Adrian Camm and the staff at Quantum Victoria, I am now further along this journey.  Recently,  thirty Year 5/6 students attended a one day  Minecraft session at Quantum.  The Quantum  project promotes the positive use of games to teachers, parents and students.  The Quantum staff catered beautifully for our diverse group of minecrafters, ranging from long term enthusiasts to first time users.   There was a great buzz amongst the students on the day and the best part was the collaboration occurring. On return to school we asked them to evaluate the day and encouragingly they identified a large range of Personal and Interpersonal Skills that they had to employ throughout the day.

It was challenging for the more experienced players to have to spend time helping others but they did a marvellous job. I found that despite many having played before, they had not played Multi-player mode before and they admitted that they enjoyed the collaborative nature of the day.   The newcomers demonstrated amazing persistence and problem-solving skills.  Playing the game in this mode also has the advantage of being overseen by Quantum staff who are quick to guide those who require it and ready to step in if anything goes awry.

The school of thought that doubts the benefits of these games is quite loud in some communities.  The addictive nature and the violence are often cited.   I admit that they can be addictive – we have had discussions about life balance and healthy lifestyles and encourage negotiated and regulated use.

My next step in this journey is to play alongside them and learn from them (we have continuing access to the Quantum Server).  We will battle school filters and hopefully have Lunchtime Minecraft Club.   I already have students wanting to achieve the variety of achievement badges that enable them to take on leadership roles.   There are opportunities to incorporate Minecraft experiences into creative writing activities which might just capture the attention of some of avid gamers who are less keen writers.  I shall be on the look out for all opportunities to harness the strengths of these experiences.

Jenkins  has “…. identified a set of core social skills and cultural competencies that young people should acquire if they are to be full, active, creative, and ethical participants in this emerging participatory culture:”  (Jenkins et al, as below)

I  compared the skills and experiences that were exhibited  on the Minecraft day with Jenkins’ list of 21st Century skills in the ‘White paper - Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century’.  I can see a strong connection – perhaps we are on the right path – it is certainly worth exploring.

Some more references that I have gathered since last year

Andrew Miller – Ideas for using Minecraft in the classroom

Rob Newberry – Some thoughts on setting up Minecraft at school

Last night, a feeling of utter frustration swept over me – my teenage daughter in final years of high school was going through the angst of preparing for an assessment.  She is a diligent student, works hard and in the most part is studying subjects that interest her and align with her passion.  She wants to learn but is tied down to playing a guessing game of “What’s going to be on the test?”  - a painful and futile activity.   Why do we still put students through this procedure when we know there are better assessment methods?  What is the point of the angst?

I know, we have all been there and survived but I am finding it very difficult to defend (in fact I can’t) a system that uses such assessment procedures.  I understand that our society seems to need to filter and sort our students in order to determine their future prospects, but there has to be a better way.

A message received afterwards “It wasn’t great, most of what I prepared wasn’t used, and what I needed I didn’t really know.  ….  It’s over now ”.  It would make me much happier to hear her say, “I really wanted to know about XYZ and I did and shared it with my class”

It really seems to me that it is all about surviving the system and not learning – well, certainly not learning to any great purpose.

The groundswell of thought seems to be with me, educational leaders are all saying that things need to change (see my previous post) , but unfortunately it won’t be in time for the dissatisfied teenager in my house or her mother.

Yours truly

Frustrated mother and educator

PS for anyone interested in a less personal rant about assessment options and possibilities, the following may interest you:

The Innovative Educator – 9 ways to assess without standardised testing

WhatEdSaid – 10 ways to assess learning without tests

Assessment without High-Stakes Testing: Protecting Childhood and the Purpose of School

I am an avid reader of blogs, happy twitter browser, keen participant in educational on-line seminars and an attendee at conferences.    I love being inspired by people who have a vision of where education needs to head in order to fill the needs of the students in our schools.

Recently, I attended “Richard Gerver: Harnessing the potential of the next generation” and it provided a reinforcement of a message that seems to be coming from many other sources.  As is also the case, it also left me wondering how can we translate this message in our schools?

With a little trepidation 350 teachers settled in a large school hall at 9am, knowing we would be there till at least 3pm.   “How could one person captivate an audience for that long and keep us from acknowledging that the chairs were hard and remembering we had other duties beyond the room?”     Well, Richard achieved that with a wonderful combination of humour, anecdotes and challenges.  I did not notice people getting wriggly in their seats until about 2.50pm.   He is a masterful storyteller, commentator and forward thinker: able to pass on a powerful message in a colourful and creative way.   So much so, the likes of Google and Tony Blair’s government have sought his contribution.

Many current educational experts are telling us that the current education system is not qualified to fulfill the needs of our students and their futures.  It was designed for the Industrial age and apparently we are now in the ‘Organic Age’  (must look that up).  I listen and wonder, how much impact can a group of teachers in a small primary school make?  We are working within a system that has a history, has demands from parents, as well as the education system that prescribes many of our behaviours.

“Are we preparing them for their futures?”  Richard pointed out that it is unfair to say that, as “At what point are children allowed to be told that they are living their lives and not preparing for them?”   “Does education make you earn the right to be a person?”   I struggle with this concept as I can hear the argument that says they need skills and knowledge, as they don’t know, what they don’t know.   The argument comes back that successful educational systems are now not content driven but rather competencies and skills based.     They need to learn how to learn, problem solve and think.  “School as broker of education not the deliverer.”   Teachers helping students learn how to seek out information and process it, not deliver it in a preaching format.

Gerver referred to the Harry Jenkins work “Confronting the challenges of participatory Culture: Media education for the 21^st Century”. (see below)  On later review, this is a long document with lots of interesting aspects.

Harry Jenkins

Gerver raised a similar point to Sir Ken Robinson when considering how much creativity children loose as they age – as society ‘teaches’ them to conform.    The value of play was again highlighted.   This gives me confidence to continue with some work on Minecraft and other games based learning.  It also reinforces the ‘Developmental learning’ program in the Junior classrooms.

It was very affirming to hear Gerver highlight the need for collaboration – a focus our School Change team has recently identified.    He told the story of the successful “Grangeton project” at a school in UK almost 20 years ago, where they turned around the academic achievements by turning around the curriculum.   Identifying the competencies, using student choices and ideas and creating a curriculum that had great success.   Collaboration – with students, families and the wider community were crucial to the success.

I liked his analysis of teachers as “Experts in human potential” – it affirms the skills that teachers have.

The motto of the school Gerver lead to such great success was  “Live a little, learn a little. Laugh a lot.”    He certainly modeled that and made us think.  As usual, I have more questions than answers.

http://openclipart.org/people/eady/eyes-for-the-world

What I see at a TeachMeet

• I see …the power of Twitter.  Most of the people who come along connect first via Twitter.  In fact, this time a Twitter chat a few weeks prior enabled our connecting to the #mobile2012 conference in Phoenix AZ (Thanks to @losiath for connecting us to @jjash and for also involving @wfryer @allanahk and @pgeorge)
• I see…people who want to learn – participants at these events accept and celebrate their roles as learners.  However ‘experienced’ anyone may be, they happily accept that seeing something from someone else’s perspective is valuable.  A tool may be familiar, but in someone else’s hands it may be very different.  Used Google docs before? Yes, but had you thought about using it for this..?
• I see … a generosity of spirit in teachers who are willing to share their skills, experiences and questions.  Classroom teachers, Teacher-librarians, ICT specialists, Department personnel, Subject specialists – everyone with something to contribute and learn.
• I see … a wonderful variety of educators from so many different spheres all combining to find common elements as well as share differences.  I particularly value the opportunity to relate to professionals who work in different sectors to those I work in.  All too often school based professional learning is parochial.
• I see … an interest from our supporting bodies in how this form of professional learning caters for the thirst of people who are not being catered for in ‘standard’ learning opportunities.
• I see … a variety of presentation styles – all following the 2 or 7 min rule but some using Prezi, Keynote, Skype, a website or just a tour from our seats of an amazing learning space.
• I see … people who want to connect to other people, who value the conversations with other professionals that they might always not get around their staff room tables.   The informal conversations and follow up after the presentations is as much part of the event as the presentations.  Connections made at Teachmeet translate into increased and improved professional leaning networks, enhanced by the personal face to face contact.
• I see … a variety of learning environments.  Teachmeets take place in educational environments – primary, secondary, tertiary, state, independent.

Does our new found need or desire to be in two places at once – the real and the virtual, detract from our experiences?   The article mentions a journalist attending an event and viewing the occasion through the lens of his camera and through eyes raised only between tweets on his mobile device.   The same scenario has started to occur at conferences that I have attended.    I certainly have enjoyed being the recipient of twitter feeds from events that I have not attended – felt like I was there in a way.  I have tweeted from events myself.  I watch Twitter feeds of TV shows like QANDA and appreciate the breadth of thought and perspectives that they expose.

I believe that this pattern of reporting on happenings whilst still experiencing them can have both positive and negative side-effects.   Your obvious ‘distractabilty’ or lack of attention must in a way reduce your ability to take in the event with all it’s ambience and features.  However, the ability to see what others are feeling about the same event could help you focus or raise your awareness – gain another perspective and make the experience richer. The question remains, do we need information and reflection at such a rapid pace?  Would it be better for people to wait to report after time for consideration?  What is being gained, if anything, by this drive to be the first to report?  Wendy Squires states,

Stories become stale in seconds and real time is barely quick enough. You practically have to be Nostradamus to keep up. I also understand Twitter is a ravenous beast that needs to be continuously fed, not so much a stream of information but an ever-escalating tsunami.

It appears that to slake the perpetual thirst for instant news, it has become as important to report what you are doing as to actually experience it. Living in the now is being replaced with ”I’ll watch it back later on TV”; the naked eye is now covered by a viewfinder; typing is the new talking.

Read more

The pressure is obviously on the media to present news at a rapid pace.  What message are we giving the people presenting or performing for us when we are more focussed on technology in our hands that is connecting us to people not in the room?   I suppose, as with many things in life, it comes down to moderation, levels of acceptable behaviour and good manners.   Photographs are so important as recordings of events and invaluable in our maintenance of history – I spend many hours reviewing old photos and delight in my photo walls depicting family history.  Someone took the time to record these experiences, but more modern technology seems to have created a more invasive presence in the ‘here and now’.

I remain a little undecided, although leaning towards the path of being happy to await my ‘reviews’ until people have had the opportunity to take it in and reflect and then share.    People in our presence deserve our attention.  Face to face interactions are still more important than virtual ones.  Once again, I guess it comes down to balance.

Image:  FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Last week, when preparing to attend Meeting of the Minds 2012, I will admit I was feeling decidedly uncomfortable.   I would classify myself as introverted, happy to share but needing time to think , preferring to write than speak,  and much preferring to play ‘behind-the-scenes’ roles.    What was I thinking?  I had registered for an ‘unconference’ which promised things such as ‘squirm debates’, and input from the participants was a required feature.    I totally understood the concept – use the power of the room, determine the needs and interests and then attempt to satisfy them from within.   I thought to myself that what was being asked of the participants of MOTM is exactly what we want of our students everyday.  Active participation in their learning.

I was out of my comfort zone. So, with some trepidation I attended, and immediately the feelings of discomfort dissipated (well mostly).  As with Teachmeets, the participants were all volunteers – they all wanted to be there, giving up precious weekend time to attend.  Everyone had something to offer and the friendliness was tangible.   Many people attending were already part of my on-line Personal Learning Network, and now those relationships are enhanced by face-to-face meet ups.  Others were new to me and they now further enhance my PLN.    People were as happy to talk about ‘Why?’ as ‘How?’ and that made for some great conversation.   The fact that the same amount of time was spent analysing a question as was spent answering it, indicates the nature of the event.

Driving home, I likened it to a ‘perfect classroom’ –  a place where children;

• can follow personal pathways
• can be supported by their peers and vice versa as well as by ‘experts’
• experience information presented in a variety of ways
• have time to question and reflect
• can laugh and express their learning in creative ways
• are extended beyond their comfort zones in a supportive way
• invisibly use technology to support and extend learning (OK, it was not invisible but it was definitely purposeful)

It became obvious that the amount of planning for an ‘unconference’ was just as rigorous as for a conventional conference.  The behind the scenes work had been well thought out – QR codes linking to Google docs, lunch activities that made us mingle, beautiful and thought provoking musical presentation, keynote (that’s not a keynote but a conversation starter) etc.    These things do not just happen, they occur after clever people put their minds together – and for that I am very thankful.

I am now left with some homework – connections made that will create some fantastic opportunities for both my students as well as my own professional growth.  The ‘unconference’ is over but the effects will linger.   As one participant tweeted “Still have to unpack my brain from MOTM12″.  So, is feeling uncomfortable a good thing?  Yes.

PS. A great summary created by Roland Gesthuizen  who did not attend in person but followed on Ustream and Twitter and created this Storify

All our classes have class blogs and we have been dabbling with Student blogging for a few years.  I began the students with KidBlogs and think it is a wonderful introduction – very easy to manage from a teachers perspective and easy to use from a student’s view.  There are enough features to introduce them to many aspects of blogging.

This year, I feel we are ready to move on and I am introducing the students to Edublogs (via Global2) and using the Student Blogging Challenge as a catalyst.

I asked for volunteers to be accept the challenge as I felt that mandating it would be too much and a bit unfair to some students.   I am thrilled with the first response and will begin working with the first group of volunteers next week, hoping their activity might inspire a few uncertain ones.

I am doing this as I believe that blogging has so many benefits for students.  When blogging,

• we create an audience for our work and writing and thereby inspire a quest for excellence
• we can gather ideas from many more people than just our small class or school
• we can share the wonderful things we know
• we feel good about ourselves as we get positive feedback about the things we do
• we let our families know more about what we do at school
• we get feedback by wonderful comments that help us think more about what we do and sometimes why we do them
• we interact with our readers via comments and practice appropriate language skills for online interactions
• we create a wonderful positive digital footprint
• we  model and practice Cybersafe behaviours

More to follow as the challenge begins.

Visual http://www.flickr.com/photos/langwitches/4343432434/sizes/s/in/set-72157625878283389/

I would like to set the scene as to where our gathering today  fits in to a much larger picture.

1. The concept of Teachmeet is not new – the earliest mentions I found seemed to be around 2005 and associated with Ewan McIntosh from Scotland. Today, Teachmeets occur in many countries around the world. Highly evident in the UK, I also found mentions in USA and South Africa. There is also a Kidsmeet and Studentsmeet movement. There is a similar movement that seems much bigger in the USA referred to as Edcamp – the difference between these is not as obvious as the similarities.

2. Our Melbourne meetings were directly inspired by the Sydney experience where Teachmeets have grown dramatically in the past 12 months. Henrietta Miller and the Sydney team are amazing examples of enthusiastic teachers who began a movement that is now exploding. They are currently working on a world record TM with 160+ people already registered. A website has been created by them to keep the communication open and we are grateful to be included in that. The mission is clear and simple – teachers sharing with teachers.

3. The format for most meetings seems similar and we have chosen the 2 or 7 min presentation style. Two min micro presentations and slightly longer seven minutes presentations. If it happens that you are listening to a session that does not exactly thrill you or is not relevant to your current needs – the longest you will have to wait is 7 min until another session starts. The conversations and connections we make – putting faces to Twitter names etc are as valuable as the presentations.

The format depends on the willingness of participants to present and we are very grateful to those who have put their hand up for today. Obviously the example and experience of the team who presented at No 1. was motivating and we acknowledge that without volunteers, there is no TeachMeet.

4. So, in summary a Teachmeet has the following features and benefits -

5. TeachMeet International has also evolved as an online option for those who cannot meet personally . The second one is happening in March. As you can see it lives up to it’s international name with presentations from all around the world.

So, I am sure there will be a post after this one …….

Day Two of the 2012 school year, 55 senior primary students, class teachers and support staff  jumped in the deep end – collaborating, connecting and creating.   Firstly, we took the opportunity to participate in World Safer Internet day activities.  Beginning with an on-line ‘Blackboard Collaborate’ session presented by Greg Gebhert from ACMA and arranged by DEECD.  We were thrilled when 9 parents joined us having only been given a days notice.

We watched the presentation along with students from approximately 60 schools across our state – getting a sense that there is a bigger picture – a shared journey with similar issues and questions.

Following up from the presentation, we decided to test our ambition this year to include lots of collaborative activities with our students and staff and therefore conducted the first of what I hope will be more Jigsaw activities.     I loved learning along with the kids when a colleague lead the children through the philosophy behind this strategy.  Each teacher took on a role and shared the responsibility.   Co-teaching has so many benefits and I am looking forward to reaping many of them as the year progresses.

As the day progressed, the students watched a variety of Cybersafety videos and read brochures and posters. They learned together, shared their learning with others and then created CommonCraft style videos to display their learning. Here is one

Untitled from vgridley on Vimeo.

All in all, a successful day and start to the year.

There are some wonderful resources out there and here are a few we used today