Derek’s Blog

Over the past week or so I’ve had the privilege of participating in a number of cluster meetings around the country – always so energizing to be among groups of teachers gathered to share their ideas, experiences and classroom successes!

For my part I’ve been sharing thoughts relating to possible futures we face, referencing the findings of the Horizon Report and CORE’s ten trends. Top of the list in these and other trends findings at the moment is the impact of mobile technologies on classroom teaching and learning.

Confirming the accuracy of these predictions, I keep coming across examples of where mobiles are already impacting on practice in the classroom. Just a few days after Apple released it’s iPad in NZ I was at the EastNet cluster where I met cluster coordinator, Belinda Johnston (pictured) who was recently returned from participating in the Apple Bus tour through schools in California. In her presentation to the group, Belinda explained how she’d embarked on the trip with the intention of focusing on the use of laptops in a 1-1 setting in classrooms. As a result of the tour, however, she has returned convinced about the future of mobile technologies! Belinda shared some compelling stories and illustrations from her trip to California to support her reasons for this change in direction, and is now the proud owner of an iPad, and is preparing the case for a suite of iPods in her school.

A couple of days later, just after I presented the ten trends at the Hamilton CORE breakfast,  I was in Te Aroha, visiting Stuart Armisted (pictured right) at Stanley Ave School. As a part of an extensive programme of school review and development at the school, Stuart and his staff have been exploring the potential uses of mobile phones – thanks to some generous support from Vodafone who have supplied a set of HTC Magic mobile phones running the Android operating system. Stuart is exploring the use of a range of Android Apps on the phones, and is also working closely with the developers of the school LMS, Ultranet, to enable teachers and students to interact directly via the mobile devices in the classroom.

We live in exciting times – and it’s very pleasing to see such examples of the adoption and use of new technologies that are based on sound pedagogical principals and the support of school curriculum – not simply as a result of “techno-lust”

I’ve been reading a report out from The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University titled Educators, Technology and 21st Century Skills: Dispelling Five Myths which was released by  during the International Society for Technology in Education annual conference and exposition (formerly known as NECC) in Denver.

The study involved a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. K–12 teachers, principals and assistant principals, and addresses five myths about technology use in education—particularly by teachers—and educators’ perceptions about the effects of technology use on student learning, behaviors and skills.

The key message of the survey findings is that teachers’ technology habits make a difference in their perceptions of student outcomes – reinforcing a strongly held belief of mine that teacher modelling is essential in terms of developing effective practices with ICT in education. We can’t simply introduce technologies and hope that the students will make good use of it, nor can we expect that programmes based on old transmissive pedagogies are sufficient, where teachers take the role of expert who imparts knowledge and instructs. Teacher use of the technology must be explicitly modelled – it must be a part of their everyday practice and discourse. Teachers have a vital role to play at the intersection of technology and 21st century expertise—modeling their confidence with technology, guiding young minds toward constructive educational purposes, and teaching students the tried and new skills for college and career readiness in a competitive world.

The five ‘myths’ that are explored in the report are:

• Myth 1 – Teachers who are newer to the profession and teachers who have greater access to technology are more likely to use technology frequently for instruction than other teachers.
• Myth 2 – Only high-achieving students benefit from using technology.
• Myth 3 – Given that students today are comfortable with technology, teachers’ use of technology is less important to student learning.
• Myth 4 - Teachers and administrators have shared understandings about classroom technology use and 21st Century skills.
• Myth 5 – Teachers feel well prepared by their initial teacher preparation programs to effectively incorporate technology into classroom instruction and to foster 21st century skills

Key findings of the report include:

• Teachers who use technology frequently report greater benefits to student learning, engagement and skills from technology than teachers who spend less time using technology to support learning.
• Teachers who completed their initial certification or licensure since 2000 do not believe their pre-service programs taught them how to teach 21st century skills or how to effectively incorporate technology into instruction.
• There is little association between a teacher’s years of experience and the frequency of technology use in the classroom.

PDF version of the report can be downloaded here.

I’m always interested in some of the trends and perspectives shared by those who are researching the  characteristics of the emerging generations – amid the positioning and argument, there are areas of agreement that the youngsters of today are growing up in quite a different world to what existed for my generation, and as a consequence, there are likely to be things that differentiate the way they think and act, reflecting a different set of values, expectations and aspirations among this group.

The term ‘millennials‘ (also known as Generation Y) has been coined to broadly describe those who are growing as the young adults as we enter the 21st century – and co-incidentally, includes all 5 five of my children! The infographic posted by Ethan Bloch of Flowtown shown on the left provides a very easy way to access information about the characteristics of this group – and the emerging understandings we have about their demographic from an international perspective. The section on Millennials and technology, including the data on attitudes to technology, and sources of news and information provide an indication of where some of these differences are.

On the same topic, Pew Internet have released a new report titled Millennials will Make Online Sharing in Networks a Lifelong Habit, in which their researchers have interviewed a number of experts who say that the advantages Millennials see in personal disclosure will outweigh their concerns about their privacy. The experts interviewed generally believe that today’s tech-savvy young people, who are known for enthusiastically embracing social networking, will retain their willingness to share personal information online even as they get older and take on more responsibilities. You can read the report here. (PDF download)

Some years ago now a colleague of mine and I put an idea to a potential funder to develop an online timeline for people to contribute photographs and stories that could be tagged to specific locations – linked to collections in museums. The proposal wasn’t successful and so our idea languished. So it was with interest I explored HistoryPin today, after the link was sent to me by Malcolm. Created in partnership with Google, HistoryPin allows anyone to contribute photographs and stories, linked to a specific location, building up a visual history book. Viewers can search for and explore the stories related to a certain location, and using the time slider, can find stories in that location in different times in history. HistoryPin also links with StreetView images so that comparisons can be made between historical views of locations and how they look now. As the resources on this build up I can imagine it being a really valuable reference for the classroom.

I’ve just spent a couple of days working with some wonderful teachers in Hamilton, as part of two different cluster meetings. In my presentations to these groups I referred to the trends in population growth, and the considerations for us as educators of this on issues of globalisation, cultural awareness, language learning etc. in our future planning.

It was with interest that I saw the link to the video above from TED, featuring Hans Rosling on Global Population Growth. I really like this presentation for two reasons…

1. it presents the issues in a very visual and entertaining manner, providing much food for thought. The clip itself would be very useful as a resource in the classroom – to generate discussion and further research.
2. the way Rosling presents the information provides a brilliant example of how such complex and big picture issues can be made ‘accessible’ for learners, and so the modelling of what he does could be adapted by a classroom teacher wanting to introduce students to these ideas.

Rosling’s video, combined with resources such as the Miniature Earth project, provide us with opportunities to really engage our students in ways of understanding the implications of global population growth, and the distribution of wealth, health, food etc.

Back to work after five weeks away, including three week’s leave, and there is plenty to focus attention on I have a few presentations coming up based on CORE’s Ten Trends, and so was interested to see the presentation above put together by Mary Meeker, currently managing director at the investment bank of Morgan Stanley. Meeker has been producing regular reports on internet trends for some years now and is highly regarded in the industry for her work – so I guess is worth taking notice of. The slides in the presentation are pretty dense with data, but do provide a very compelling picture of the rise of mobile devices in the future of the internet – summed up in slide 5 which predicts that sometime in 2012 sales of phones will exceed those of PCs. I also found slide 14 of interest, comparing the number of days to reach 1 million units sold of a range of technologies, showing the iPad to be one of the fastest growing consumer computing devices ever.

From a different direction, the ReadWriteWeb recently published their 5 Key Trends of 2010: Half-Year Report for The Web. Not surprisingly, mobile technologies are the top of their list also – followed by real-time web, internet of things, augmented reality and structured data.

It’s encouraging to see that the trends are all in alignment with what CORE has been working on in it’s ten trends research – the key thing for us as educators is to not only be aware of what these trends are, but of the implications of each for what we are doing in our schools and, indeed, on the very nature and activity in our schools and of learning in the future.

In particular, we need to be thinking about how we will accommodate the potentially huge changes that may occur as a result of the impact of mobile devices used for learning. Slide 14 in the MorganStanley presentation provides a really useful diagrammatic summary of what the changes are from a technology point of view – but again, it’s how we imagine the implications of this for learning that will be important, both in terms of what learning might be like in the mobile-enabled future learning environments, and what learning we must be doing to prepare our students for living and learning in a mobile-enabled future.

Our three week trip around the UK has come to an end, and I’m now sitting in my home office preparing thoughts for the coming week back at work – but before I do, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the “places we stayed” during our trip, as these contributed a lot to the overall experience

Our award for the most impressive building goes to the Holiday Inn at Amesbury, where we stayed on our first night. We hoped to be able to catch an early morning view of Stonehenge, only to find that they’d cordoned the whole area off as the following day was the Summer solstice when they expected the annual invasion of countless thousands to see the sunrise. In Amesbury we also experienced the most unusual meal – with an order for a Caesar Salad being delivered as a handful of loose mesculun salad leaves covered in a splodge of ultra-creamy coleslaw, resembling the stuff you get in punnets at a KFC store.

Award for the best B&B goes to Prospect House in Penryn, where our wonderful host Carolyn served up a delicious Cornish breakfast both mornings we were there – very tasty. Great rooms, and very reasonably priced.

Award for the most outrageous interior decoration at a B&B goes to the Sunnyside guest House in Southport. Every room was decorated in the black and white theme, providing a rather zany environment, but great comfort and good value – and close to the beach and main street for cafes etc. Also found a laundromat just along the road which was very helpful!

Kendal’s Beech House was a welcome sanctuary after a long drive up from Southport via Blackball. Very comfortable and a top contender for best B&B, but edged out by Propsect House on price.

Award for the most “Fawlty Towers”-like experience goes to the Pemberton Arms on Stockton Road, Cold Hesledon. We found this one by accident, after having travelled down from Glasgow and leaving our run a little late in finding accommodation for the night. The food was authentic and very tasty – but the accommodation was another matter. Besides the strong smell of smoke in the rooms, the dubious state of the floors and the bright lights shining directly into the bedroom windows from the display lighting outside, the two bathrooms were also used by the proprietor whose soap, toothbrush and towels remained there as a reminder of his presence. Towels were provided – as long as you didn’t mind drying yourself on a hand-towel after your shower. And to cap it off, the proprietor locked everyone in after 11pm and didn’t wake to unlock until after 8am when the alarms would be turned off. Being early risers and on the road well before 8am, we were given the option of using the fire escape as our means of exit – which we did

We spent three nights at the Roydon Mill Estate in one of their lodges – complete with spa pool, dish washer and clothes washer/dryer. A totally relaxing environment in which to spend a couple of days after two weeks on the road, and before we headed into London and then onto Paris. Easy access into London by train which passes right by, an easy walk into the village for a pub meal if desired, and 5 mins into Harlow for serious shopping if required.

Have had a most enjoyable time making my way up to Scotland after leaving Liverpool a few days ago. Since then I’ve stayed in Carlisle and enjoyed a walk along Hadrian’s Wall as we drove up the Reiver’s trail into Scotland yesterday. We did manage to stop along the way to watch the England vs. Germany game in Hawick, in a pub with a group at one end supporting Germany and another at the other end supporting England. Somehow we managed to remain in the middle and come out unscathed

Today we enjoyed the sights of Edinburgh – taking in the usual tourist haunts around Edinburgh Castle, the National Museum of Scotland and all the other sights along the Royal Mile. We also took the bus out to Ocean Terminal where the ex-Royal Yacht Britannia is now moored, and enjoyed a great seafood lunch at Newhaven with Ewan McIntosh.

Edinburgh is a fabulous city of stone buildings – very austere and imposing – and steeped in history. One of the highlights was a one hour tour of some underground streets in the centre of Edinburgh – where it is possible to walk through and experience what life might have been like in the 17th century in Edinburgh, around the time of the plagues etc. and before the more modern, 18th and 19th century buildings appeared over the top of them.

• Top photo: Edinburgh castle
• Middle photo: me on Hadrian’s wall
• Lower photo: Ewan and me

More photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/derekw/

I had the privilege today to visit Knowsley Park Centre for Learning, the most recently opened school in the Future Schooling in Knowsley schools transformation project. I’ve had an interest in this project since it was first conceptualised in 2001, and I was working at the NZ Correspondence School, attempting to contribute to a transformation project there. There are many aspects of the vision for Knowsley schools that appeal to me, including:

• it is a ’system’ level transformation, accommodating learners from pre-school to post 16 education.
• it was an extremely well-managed transition, involving all stakeholders and phased to allow everyone an opportunity to engage and feel ownership.
• it has a strong emphasis on community – as reflected in the high level of community participation and use of the facilities out of school hours.
• there is a strong push for a sense of “being part of the Knowsley education system’, rather than simply belonging to an individual school.
• a great deal of effort went into defining and trialing new pedagogical approaches before the new buildings were actually built.

Of course, there’s plenty more to the story than this, I have lots of photos to ponder on, and some paperwork to read through which will be helpful as I prepare for a Future Schools workshop being planned prior to ULearn.

For now, however, I’ll return to my holiday here in the UK

Today, on the way North from Cornwall, I had the great privilege of visiting the Eden Project. This is something I’ve heard plenty about from NZ, but never really imagined I’d get the chance to see up close and personal. It is a phenomenal undertaking – comprising a couple of large bio-domes, one  housing plants from the tropical rainforest countries and the other from drier, desert-like regions. Outside there’s a huge area devoted to plantings from a variety of places. In addition there is a vast building known as The Core, that houses many educational exhibits – plus the building itself has some pretty interesting features that exemplify the things the project stands for.

The Eden project is wholly owned by the Eden Trust, an educational charity that uses exhibits, events, workshops and educational programmes to remind people of our dependence on, and connection to, the natural world. It’s a truly awe-inspiring place to visit, built entirely in what was one of the pits from which they excavated the white china clay the area is reknown for.

The visit to this site had double signifance for me – while visiting some of my past in Cornwall, I have come to learn that my surname is actually Cornish for “White Clay”, and that this area is where relatives of mine with the name Wenmoth have been traced back to as far as the 1200s.