Derek's Blog

As part of the work being done in developing the ECE ICT strategy this week, we've spent time pondering the question "why do we need a strategy? What is its purpose?" This is the question that was asked by the group who are currently developing the "National Educational Technology Plan" in the US. They examined 28 policy documents in their 20 year retrospective of educational technology policy and came up with three main reasons for the development of policy:
- to influence and inform decision makers
- to make money and resources follow
- to keep the fundamental debate alive.

As we've been working to develop the ECE ICT strategy, these same key intentions have surfaced regularly, providing a strong basis for the shaping of the statemens and questions in the discussion documents we're currently preparing. We're currently preparing discussion documents on the following:
- Purpose - why have a strategy?
- Vision - why ICT in ECE?
- Philosophy and beliefs - what shared beliefs and understandings underpin the strategy/
- Goals/strategies - audiences
- Goals/strategies - technology
- Roles and repsonsibilities

And we're not the only ones developing an ECE ICT strategy, take a look at:
ICT Strategy for the Early Years from Scotland

It will be interesting to see what emerges from this work, once the documents are taken out to the sector for discussion.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week I'm involved with a writing team preparing the basis of a national ICT strategy for early childhood. Some really exciting things are happening in the early childhood sector with the use of ICT, including the use of digital cameras and computers to create "learning stories" such as in Roskill South Kindergarten which is part of the Ministry of Education's Centre's of Innovation . Also represented on the writing team is the Kohanga Reo Trust which has had a computer in every centre since 1998 for management and administration purposes.
It's an exciting project to be involved in, addressing the challenge of creating a document that is consistent with the already established aims and principles of the Early Childhood Curriuclum, Te Whariki , while also fitting into the broader, pan-sector vision of a life-long learner in the digital age.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm now back in NZ and have spent some of the day reviewing the stuff I pickied up in New Orleans, as well as items that have come my way via lists etc.
Since blogging was a hot topic at NECC, I thought it might be useful to include here a couple of links that I came across first in George Seimen's newsletter, and are now posted on "eLearningSpace".
Part One is titled "The Art of Blogging; Overview, definitions, uses and implications".
Part Two provides more of a 'how to', with tools for blogging and examples.
Although first published in December 2003, the information and links provided in these articles remains current and informative for those starting out in this area.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's all over - NECC has finished with a bang here in New Orleans - the photograph above shows me with Jonathan Beveridge and Douglas Harre (from NZ MoE) who also attended. I'm going to be out of range for connecting to the web for a few days now as I make my way back to NZ - will ponder the things I've seen and done and endavour to add these to my blog over the next week.
Meantime - here's another shot illustrating the hospitality we received here!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Am sitting in the middle of a presentation by Susan Patrick form the US Dept of Education, titled "Are Schools Ready for Today's Students? - A sneak preview of the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP)". I'm using the extended entry to record my notes from this presentation as it happens - cool eh?
Key points from this presentation

• change in how funding is provided - now targetting specific educational goals - and matching appropriate hardware/software, PD and resource development to help meet that goal
  
• use of online assessment to create more meaningful assessment through immediacy of feedback and use of assessment data to inform future planning
  
• need to collect and use data about students to inform future planning - most of this data exists within the business and commercial community, rather than within education.
  

Three major forces impacting change on Ed Tech policy
- economy is changing and is a major force on Education
- students are different today
- eudcational system as we know it is going through major changes

1 - Economy
- 60% of jobs in 2010 don't even exist today (dept. of labour)
- will be information-based in a changing world
- global issues - other couint4ries are catching up really fast
- in the past three years the size of the world's workforce has doubled (Craig Barrett)
- US has the second highest investment in technology per student - but rates very low in terms of achievement in science and maths
- productivity paradox - businesses had to first re-structure their operation before realising the benefits of technology
- shcools have an achievement paradox - despite a decade of investment in technology, achievement indicators have remained flat
- ed system must re-engineer its processes - achievement, delivery, instructional strategies etc.
- need for investment in professional development
- changes in federal funding of ICT in the US:
First - hardware and infrastructure
Second - professional development
Now - focus on educational goal, outcomes, need - then determine what hardware/software and PD is required to achieve that goal.

3 priorites for US Tech Plan
- student data and management systems
- assessment
- eLearning

Student data and management
- use of data to individualise student learning programmes
- tracking and recording achievement, planning to meet student needs
- need for fully integrated information system - central focus is a data warehouse, enabling all users to draw information from a variety of data sources - then act on it to bring about change in achievement

Assessment
- increase timeliness of testing and return of test results
- current test results from a paper-based testing approach inform instruction
- online testing provides immediate feedback - then able to immediately tailor instruction for the individual
- expensive to set up initially, but return over time is
- expect return on investment in three years (based on Oregon tiral)

eLearning
- one way of offering choice in rural areas
- opportunity for teachers to access PD and higher ed.
- encouraging development of state virtual schools through different funding models

Average exenditure per pupil has risen from around $3000 per student in 1984 to around $8000 in 2004 - while the achievement levels as reflected by national testing has remained flat. CONCLUSION - despite the dramatic increase in spending on education per student, there has been no increase in maths/science proficiency. Gaps that exist between ethnic groups also a major concern.

Third major force - STUDENTS
- we are teaching a different generation of students - the MIllenials
- major undertaking to explore how students are using technology in school, out of schools - found that noone had any data on students - businesses, market reseachers etc had more data than the educational professionals!
-

MILLENIALS - data from commercial research groups...
- born between 1982 and 2000
- have come of age along with the internet
- information ahs been universally available and free to them
- community is a digital plance
- family is important to them
- beleive education is critically important to their future success
- interested in their world and community
- have substantial purchasing power (20% of teens own stock)
- live their lives online - use computers at home more than TV (ave 24 hours per week compared with ave of 15 mins per week at schools)
- concerning stats re student perceptions of school - steady decline in the last twenty years

CHALLENGE
- to create learning environments that are more suited to the needs of the Millenials
-

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 1:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

At the end of day one of the NECC conference - attended a most interesting session hosted by Margaret Honey from the EDC Centre for Children and Technology in New York titled "A retrospective on 20 years of national technology policy". Margaret and her group analysed 28 key, national policy documents from the last 20 years as part of a contribution to the development of the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP).
I've used the extented entry to record my notes from this session - made me appreciate (yet again) just how important it is to reflect on where we've come from when planning for the future.

A RETROSPECTIVE ON 20 YEARS OF NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY PLANNING
Begin by asking...
- why do we produce policy papers? what is their value?
Three key reasons emerge
- to influence policy and decision makers
- to enable money and resources to follow
- to keep the fundamental debates alive

Three Key questions used in the analysis of the 28 papers..
1 - why have we chosen to invest in educational technologies?
2 - what have been the requisite steps to ensureeffective use?
3 - what are the assumptions that underpin the decisions?

Summary of analysis re question one - investment - common themes from the papers...
- technology is a tool to enable things to be done more efficiently, effectively etc
- technology is a change agent
- technology as a force for economic competitiveness

Recommendations that are consistent in these papers
- improve access and connectivity
- create more high quality resources and software
- provide sustained professional development
- increase funding from multiple sources
- increase and diversify research
- review, revise and update policy
-

Focus of working party - How can future policy...
- shape practice?
- link to public concerns? (eg quality, equity etc.)
- build on past successes?

Really interesting to note that the recommendations in many of the white papers studied haven't been followed through. eg 1992 paper recommended use of technology to enable assessment, and another, earlier, recommending the increased use of distance education.

NOTE- need to develop policy that encourages exploring possibilities, and NOT to work from or to enforce compliance with standards etc.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 1:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Have just sat through an intereting research presentation on the use of blogs in a pre-service teacher education programme at San Diego State University with Bernie Dodge (of web quests fame). The focus of this was on a group of English students who used a personal blog to keep a journal of their experiences as a student teacher whilst teaching English to high school students. As such, the presentation provided only a narrow view of what a blog is, limited pretty much to being a semi-private online diary. No coment was made about the use of links and additional features such as "blog-rolling" etc.

The discussion got me thinking about the ways in which Blogs are used, and the connection with Gladwell's thoughts about connectors and mavins in his book The Tipping Point . Gladwell defines "connectors" as people who have a much wider social circle of friends than most others, while "Mavins" are those who have the unuque ability to gather information from a variety of sources and piece it together in a way that others can access and understand. Both of these sorts of people, Gladwell claims, have what he terms "social power" (as distinct from economic or political power) - and it is this power that is likely to be a dominant determinant of change in the future.

My musings are around what an ideal tool a blog provides for these sorts of people - and how the tool itself, might encourage these attributes in many others! Truly an instrument of social empowerment and social change!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 4:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

After a harrowing 27 hours of travelling I finally arrived at the NECC conference in New Orleans on Saturday evening.

On the flight from LA to New Orleans I sat next to Jason Ediger, an Apple Distinguished Educator from Orange County, California, who has established and runs the iSightEd website, a place for educators using Apple's iSight technology to connect students via video conferencing. There's a spot on his site to enter your details and be connected with other iSight educators from around the world - Cool!

Spent a good part of Sunday looking around New Orleans before joining the other international conference delegates at the welcome, followowed by the opening keynote speech by Malcom Gladwell of The Tipping Point fame. Having read his book a couple of years ago I was really looking forward to hearding him speak and was not disappointed!

A formal conference opening 'bash' was then held on the waterfront, with a free tour of the aquarium thrown in, and a genuine Cajun band to entertain us!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 4:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ASTE conference finished today - an amazing gathering of many of the key e-educators in the tertiary sector of NZ. A key focus of the conference was to workshop and develop a set of "standards" that might be adopted by TEC and tertiary institutions in an attempt to provide some quality assurance around what is happening in eLearing at the tertiary level in NZ.
While the level of discourse was excellent, and I am optomistic about the outcome, wo things concerned me about the process...

1 - the language that was used to express what those standards might be, although well intentioned, very strongly reflected an "institution-centrted", industrial approach to the issues. I'm hoping this will be addressed in the work that follows.

2 - I find the idea of 'standards' a bit of a difficulty. Technically the term is OK, but the baggage it brings with it is bound to be off putting to many staff - suggesting ideas of 'judgment' and 'absolutes'. I'd prefer to see a term such as 'guidelines' used. An institution could then adopt the set of guidelines and develop a set of indicators or criteria that suits their particular context in order to demonstrate how they will ensure those guidelines are being followed in their institution.

I'll be following the progress in this work with interest.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's been a hectic week or so. No entries in my blog last week. Although I was in CHCH for the whole week working at Ultralab, the days were full and I didn't have access to the internet where I was staying in the evening which is when I generally find time to complete an entry.

Over the past couple of days I have been attending the ASTE conference in Wellington titled "Professionalism Online". This morning I presented the keynote on the topic "Quality eLearning and what staff need to ensure it". What a mouthful. Not my choice of topic, but a useful challenge to create a presentation that explored ideas around the definition of eLearning, notions of quality in education and eLearning, and ideas about professional development.

I chose to focus on the difference between an institution-centred approach to eLearning and a learner-centred approach, pointing out that the ways in which we would consider quality measures in each scenario would differ greatly. I then looked at principles of powerful learning as a basis for designing an effective professional development approach for staff, which models the sorts of things an institution may be trying to achieve with its students.

My powerpoint presentation will be uploaded soon onto the ASTE website and I'll create a link to it from my blog when that happens.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

More reading on the train - got me thinking about the Knowledge Society. There's so much hype about this - we've had the "knowledge wave" and been bombarded with lists of skills we must ensure our students develop - but how helpful is this rhetoric in helping us shape our thinking about what schools should be like in the future, and, more importantly, what teaching in the knowledge society will be (should be) like? An article from Andy Hargreaves is what got me thinking about all of this - for more, click on the extended entry link below...

In his recent book, Teaching in the Knowledge Age, Andy Hargreaves asserts that the knowledge economy primarily serves the private good, and that the knowledge society encopmasses the public good. He says "our schools have to prepare young people for both of them."

Hargreaves also claims that the term Knowledge Age is a misnomer - rather, a knowledge society is really a learning society. He argues that knowledge societies process information and knowledge in ways that maximise learning, stimulate ingenuity and invention, and develop the capacity to initiate and cope with change.

As a father of five children at different levels of the education system, these characteristics are what I'd hope might have been developed in my kids as a result of their schooling. As an educator I see a change developing in how we conceptualise curriculum, from a heavy emphasis on content (knowledge) to the development of capabilities - for instance, APEC's skills for the 21st Century, or those detailed in the DfES skills strategy for instance.

As an educator AND a father then, I am left wondering, how can we ensure that the drivers we are responding to in our efforts to reform schooling, to change curriculum and/or to embrace ICT in our classrooms are the right ones? Are we simply fuelling the fires of the knowledge economy which, as Hargreaves asserts, inevitably benefits the privileged few - or are we striving for a utopian ideal of some public good that may, in fact, stifle the very enterprise that will take us forward.

How can we, as Hargreaves suggests, ensure that what we do in our schools will prepare our students for both (ie the knowledge economy AND the knowledge society)?

(I'm really just whetting your appetite here, as Hargreave's article provides some really useful ideas to follow up on!)

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Have just come in from meeting with a group of gentlemen here in Wellington affectionately known as "The Brains Trust" - a small group of people involved in the IT industry who began meeting together when they worked together on the Y2K project. Really interesting discussion around the topic of eLearning, during which I shared my eLearning animation to illustrate the relationship between the resource and discourse elements of the eLearning experience.
Seems that there is still a lot of discussion to be had about the role of teachers in the emerging eLearning paradigm, particularly if you subscribe (like me) to the idea that eLearning is not about the delivery (transmission) of knowledge (aka information) across the internet pipeline.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)