Very pleasing to see the latest Education Gazette featuring a story about Albany Senior High School and the success of their decision to run all of their school’s computers on open source software. I had the privilege of being involved with the school during its establishment phase and know just how much of a challenge it presented to principal Barbara Cavanagh and her senior team, including Mark Osborne, DP in charge of ICT and the person who has driven this process. The challenges weren’t just the technical ones. Some of the biggest challenges came through the change that the use of open source software brought to the established patterns of use, and to the existing beliefs and attitudes of staff and community members. I applaud what ASHS has done, as it represents a decision based on a highly participatory process of developing a school vision that is truly aspirational, including an approach that is truly learner-centric and sustainable. Well done ASHS team!

The Learning@School conference is rollicking along in Rotorua at the moment, with keynote speaker on day one, Andy Hargreaves, setting the scene with challenges to us all about the need to take account of the whole context and culture of our school when considering change and development. Pam Hook had the audience spell-bond also with her “Hooked on Thinking” ideas and strategies.

Unfortunately for me I am missing the conference, and have had to rely on my Twitter feeds, text messages and the odd call to keep me posted. Having made it to the opening of the conference I’ve had to return home for family reasons. That didn’t stop the presentation I was scheduled to do from going ahead – with my colleague from the Ministry of Education, Douglas Harre, stepping up to share thoughts, insights and ideas based on CORE’s Ten Trends for 2009. This is the annual list of trends developed by CORE staff to represent a view of some key areas of interest for NZ educators with regards to the impact of ICTs on teaching and learning.

This year’s trends are:

1. Mobile Technologies for learning
2. Netbooks
3. Cloud Computing
4. Learning spaces/environments
5. Open Education Resources
6. High Definition Video conferencing
7. Advanced Networks
8. Cyber-Citizenary
9. Green computing
10. Digital Literacy

The slideshow used at Learning@School is provided here:

For links to other research and lists of trends and predictions for 2009 check out the following:

Horizon Report, 2009

Looking forward to 2009

100 Top Sites for the year ahead

The Future of the Internet III

Horizon report – Australia/NZ edition

I’ve just spent the day in Wellington at various MoE meetings – a couple of long term projects kept surfacing, the Ministry’s Personalising Learning initiative and the work of the Virtual Learning Network – both are things I’m pretty passionate about, and in an interesting way, both are inextricably linked.

writing for the national College of School Leadership in the UK, Charles Leadbetter explores the link between personalised learning and collaboration in a publication titled “The Shape of Things to Come“. I’ve found this publication very helpful in the development of my own thinking. As I’ve participated in the development of the Virtual Learning Network over the past five years the two major drivers behind its design and operation have (a) collaboration between and among schools, and (b) meeting the needs of individual students – personalisation.

Leadbetter argues that these two things go hand-in-hand, more particularly, that you cannot achieve personalisation without collaboration. The publication is free to download and well worth a read. Here are some gems:

• The frontline learning is not the classroom, but the bedroom and the living room. Our education system’s biggest untapped resource is the children themselves.
• Innovating a personalised learning offer will only be possible with matching organisational innovations in how schools operate. Collaboration is key to that.
• Personalised learning schools equip children to become more active, engaged learners, able to reflect on how they learn, what they find hard or difficult, how to best express themselves.
• Collaboration will only deliver if it becomes more radical and ambitious, It is not an attractive add-on, but a different way to do the school’s core job.
• Collaboration can be held back by regulation, inspection and funding regimes that encourage schools to think of themselves as autonomous, stand alone units.
• Collaboratives of schools and children’s service providers should become basic building blocks of the system: employing staff, deploying them, planning provision, making admissions, offering choice, sharing platforms and services.

Now there’s some food for thought!

I’ve been reflecting a bit on my experiences here in Malaysia this morning – particularly in terms of what it has meant for me in terms of working away from my home and family for extended periods of time, and have realised just important a number of the technologies that I now take for granted are to me.

For instance, on my computer my Skype and iChat windows automatically open when my computer is switched on, thus I have to make a conscious decision NOT to work with them running rather than the other way around. This provides me with a “virtual presence” whenever I am online, and the ability to see which of my friends and colleagues are online. There’s seldom been a time when I’ve opened my computer during my time here that I haven’t been “interrupted” by someone wanting to connect for a variety of reasons – from friends simply inquiring how things are going through to colleagues with specific questions etc. This has allowed me to remain connected to and involved in the range of things I have on my programme back in NZ.

In our project here in Malaysia, we have used these same tools to provide synchronous opportunities for teachers and students in Malaysia to connect with peers in New Zealand, and it has been interesting to see how these first time users have adapted and adopted these new technologies very quickly – such that I now have an ever growing list of names on my contact list!

Another thing I’ve come to rely on is the ability to simply open my computer up wherever I am and be able to connect to the internet – whether by wireless (which is being implemented in a big way here in Perak) or by plugging into a cable in a school or hotel room. This relative ‘portablility’ allows me to remain connected and involved regardless of my physical location.

The combination then of the communications software that provides me with this sense of presence, the laptop I carry and the wireless access that allows for portability, and the fact that I can so easily personalise these tools provides me with an increasing sense of what a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is and can be.

It was of interest to read this morning news that Sony and British Telecom have joined forces to integrate the PSP with BT Broadband’s video and voice softphone VoIP software, meaning that calls will be free, with the customer only having to pay for the BT broadband subscription! This will certainly introduce a more mobile connectivity tool into the mix, and must certainly be a sign of things to come as we become more mobile!

I’ve just been listening again to Evangeline Stefanakis and Helen Barrett at the CORE Breakfast session, speaking about the use of ePortfolios and the ways in which these can support the goals of personalising learning. While the idea of personalising learning sounds good in principle, there are many ways in which the idea may be manifest in practice. All of these require that we confront our existing ideas and understandings about schools, teaching and classroom practice.

The frame above is from a 9 minute video that comes from the The Consortium for School Networking’s 21th annual conference that kicked off March 28 in San Francisco. It features Chris Dede offering some thoughts on personalising learning and the challenges it brings. Chris interviews two speakers who are working to create personalised learning experiences for students:

• Jean Johnson, the project director of NotSchool.net, and

• Jack Dale, the superintendant of the Fairfax County Public School district where they are implementing an Individualised Learning Plan for every student!

In his introduction Dede compares education with the acts of sleeping, eating and bonding. Sleeping, according to Dede, is a relatively easy task whose outcome depends on relatively few variables. Bonding on the other hand is quite complex. Dede says that too often we treat learning as if it were sleeping, while everything we know about learning suggests that it is more like bonding – or at worst, like eating. But, says Dede, the very best of our education settings has less variety than a bad fast food restaurant!

The clip contributes some useful thoughts to the Personalising Learning discussion – I particularly appreciated the latter part where the panel engage in discussion around some of the issues about implementing a personalised approach within the existing school system. Dede’s final comment is worth noting – he points out that the major issue is with breaking down the social and political barriers – pointing out that technology will only ever take us part of the way towards the personalised learning dream.

A final point – although I was pointed to this clip through a link on personalising learning – the actual title of the session refers to individualised instruction – obviously the nomenclature issue is still to be resolved!