Professional_learning

So many opportunities ….

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Matt Richards quotes Stephen Heppell  “It’s a very exciting time for learning. It’s the death of education, but the dawn of learning.” .   Matt goes on to speak of the changing role of the teacher:

Being a ‘facilitator’ can sound a little empty after ‘expert’. Teachers who were previously deemed experts in a certain field can now find themselves little fish in a much larger pond. This can be a frightening or inspiring experience depending on the teacher. Sir Ken Robinson’s quote “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original” seems to speak to this issue. Being a lifelong learner is a handy attribute these days. With contemporary tools constantly changing and ‘upgrading’, a capacity for change perhaps is the greatest skill of all.

Another colleague recently wrote:

I feel the tidal wave of change in education, which occurs every 10-15 years in my experience, is faster and higher than ever before. It feels like there is only one way to go…fast and altogether!!! @maggiewi

It appears the common thread is that teaching is changing (again) and that we need support and guidance on the way – both with the big picture and the day to day realities.  I have been noticing how many opportunities we have to extend our learning as teachers (just in my local environment of Melbourne) – to continue our on-going learning, to keep up with the changes and challenges. Every day I spot tweets alerting to new possibilities. Here a few that I have spotted in the past few days:

TeachMeet

Teachmeet Melbourne (my favourite) –  A wonderful informal opportunity for teachers to gather and share with each other.

Quantum Victoria – Free – June 16 (and more to come)

Charles Leadbetter

Is education about innovation? An evening with Charles Leadbeater

State Library of Victoria – Free – June 26

Will Richardson, Professor Stephen Dinham OAM and Jenny Luca 

TEDX – Educational Leadership – Booked Out

State Library of Victoria – Free – July 19

Slide2Learn Conference 

Slide2Learn – $ – July 2-3

VITTA – Annual Conference and Expo

Reign in the Cloud

Caulfield Racecourse – $ – August 6 & 7

ELH

Lorne – $ – August

There are also often wonderful programs being offered by the State Library – Professional Learning , as well as the obvious (well, to many of us) wonderful resource available through Twitter – 24/7 professional learning.

Matt concluded,

Let us make school a place where the innovators, collaborators and leaders of this brave new world are supported and inspired.

It would appear to me that there are opportunities in the wider community.  Do our schools provide the same opportunity?

School App – testing, testing 1,2,3,4

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Inspired by a few Tweets and a presentation by Jarrod Robinson @pegeek at the recent ICTEV conference, I thought I would give App Creation a go. Using ibuildapp.com, it was relatively simple to get to this point. Our intention is to give our parents a window in to the school using the technology many carry in their pockets. The first one is Web App, the second an iPhone/Android. This is definitely just ‘sandbox’ time, lots of rough edges and not a lot of content, but shows what you can do with a great site and few hours of play.


Playing around with these things is fun, but I can’t help thinking about the practicalities. There is nothing worse than cyber-junk: sites that are not up to date. If schools are going to create apps – the logical consequence is that they have to be updated, kept alive – this responsibility will need to be managed. I like the idea, and obviously the tech side is not insurmountable but we need to plan how they will work before launching them into the wide blue yonder. We need to define our audience, our purpose and the determine how to administer it.

Communicating with our communities is an important function and this tool seems to have potential. I’ll keep playing.

Anyone else been down this path? What do you use your school app for? Used this App builder ? Used a better one?

Time out to think about the big picture

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“Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it….Richard Gerver”

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 21st 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.

People Power – Teachmeet

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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.
I like what I see and thank everyone who makes it happen.  #TMMelb
http://teachmeetmelbourne.wikispaces.com/

Snippets

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Last week I attended a two day ‘conference’ at Ravenswood school in Sydney.  The dynamic Summer Charlesworth (@edusum) had arranged for Alec and George Couros to be part of the school Travelling Inspiring Educators Program.   There were many ‘take-aways’ from this feast of ideas and challenges.  I have struggled to synthesise it since, so will use elements of the Tweet stream to help me.  This was made all the easier by taking advantage of Tweetdoc – a wonderful tool that records Twitter Streams – and in this case, the participants had very generously shared their tweets at great regularity and with great insights.

Therefore, these are snippets from the days, which recorded quotes, ideas and thoughts and are in no particular order.  I am a believer in short blog posts, so I will only choose a few and perhaps a few more in another post.

This struck a chord with me as I have occasionally reviewed my own blog posts and marvelled at the documented journey it portrays.  Reviewing our own thinking and seeing growth, or even just being reminded of what was important at a different stage is a great process.  The use of blogging as a digital portfolio was discussed and encouraged.  Wouldn’t you love your students (or children) to have a progressive record of their thinking and learning?

Our need to look at the potential benefits of connecting via social media rather than focus on the slight possibility of the not so nice.   Alec and George produced a beautiful array of examples of how these connections can enhance our existence.

I love Twitter and Blogging but the benefit of meeting people face to face cannot be underestimated.  Much of George and Alec’s message revolved around the importance of relationships and it reinforced my belief that participating in gatherings such as Ravoties and Teachmeets is powerful and important.

We know the internet is full of tools to help us connect: each comes with idiosyncracies that mean we need to be aware of their features and choose the right one for the job at hand.  Collaborative tools mean we can harness the value of connecting and produce amazing learning opportunities that are no way hindered by physical restrictions.

The concept of the teacher and leaders in schools demonstrating that they are the ‘lead learners’ was widely discussed.   “Live your messages” being a mantra to live and work by.

I loved this discussion.  I have often thought about who we classify as successful students and note that in general, our system rewards those who ‘play the game’ – they fit inside the boxes that our system requires and their success is applauded.  The more divergent thinkers – or the one’s not so willing or capable of complying – are deemed less successful.  Our attention to the individuals in our schools is obviously vital. 

I have seen the benefit of using our networks to connect our students and value the strength of a strong network.  A lovely exchange between a US educator and myself over Twitter evolved into a great learning experience for our students (See this post) and this is one of a multitude of examples. Accepting that our students can and often do learn better from people other than their teachers is vital and exposing them to strategies that expand their horizons is exciting.

It was a wonderful experience that I will continue to mull over and I echo Tom Whitby’s thoughts

I am a connected educator. It has had a profound effect on what I do, and how I do it. It has taken me to places that I could not get to without being connected. It has taken me to discussions with the leading authors and educators of today. My connectedness has made me a better educator.

Or at least I hope it is getting me there!