Life DOES have a way of getting away from you at times. The last couple of weeks has been like that for me. We have had a busy time at school - with Pet Day yesterday, two staff appointments on the go, classes for 2007 to begin thinking about, ORRS children under resourced to battle for for next year, athletic sports today, huge Guy Fawkes night on Saturday …. phew.
I have been reading an interesting book recently too whose basic thesis is that the Web2.0 environment is destroying our culture and the economic stability/viability of mainstream media. In the usual way of these things the points made are extreme and the examples used to back things up are even more so. Some good points though:
* Is an amateur blogger (like me??!!) as valuable and reliable a source as a mainstream journalist with years of training and experience. Common sense would say no. However the economic model of print and visual media is changing and will ‘real’ journalists continue to exist in the form we know them into the future? Is this a good thing or not?
* The so called ‘long tail’ is not economically viable unless you are Amazon. For an author (etc) it is not OK to only sell a handful of copies of your product. This will not make a viable income for you.
* The impact of ’self-publishing’ on the quality of mainstream media/books/etc. If anyone can publish what is the value of being a print author. Will you have to be a J K Rawling to make a living from your skills and craft?
…. and lots more to think about too.
Interesting points ….
I am also reading an interesting book by James Paul Gee at the moment looking at what it is about video gaming that is so engaging for children and how we can build this understanding of learning theory into our pedagogy. Interesting stuff too - if a difficult read because of Gee’s writing style.
I spent Friday at a seminar with Michael Fullan in ChCh. He has been one of my favourite theorists on educational change for a long time, and I wasn’t disappointed with him in person (as I have been with others).
It was a great day!
His concepts of the ‘change forces’ has certainly been influential in my thinking.
Check out the articles and resources tabs!
Some key things that stood out for me from the day:
**The size and prettiness of the planning document is inversely related to the amount
and quality of action, and in turn, to student achievement.
**Behavior changes before beliefs.
**Shared vision or ownership is more an outcome of a quality process than a
precondition.
**The clearer the new vision, the easier it is for people to see all the specific ways in
which they will be incompetent and look stupid. Many prefer to be competent at the
old wrong thing than incompetent at the new right thing.
– Black & Gregersen, 2002
Allan Levine has created an incredible wiki of 50, yes 50, tools for telling stories.
check them out HERE
…and other Web2.0 Gems HERE
I thought I knew a bit about Web2.0 tools but these lists are incredible. Allan has also gone to the trouble of making things and/or linking to examples using each of them to show what they will do.
via Wes Fryer
What is the theory of how people learn that guides school and classroom practices in your district?
In how many schools can you walk up to each teacher separately, ask this question, and expect a similar response? I doubt there are 100 schools in the country where this would happen.
Let’s see, there are Central Park East, Ithaca Alternative School, and School Without Walls in New York State. When last I visited the Ronald Reagan Elementary School in Lake Elsinore, California I could (and did) speak with many teachers, secretaries, cafeteria staff, custodians, and students and almost all of them could offer an accurate articulation of the learning theory that was driving school practices. I’m sure there must be schools in other parts of the country that can boast alignment between theory and practice. But how many?
My point: successful department stores, grocery chains and other businesses lay out their wares and instruct their sales people according to defensible theories about how shoppers shop. I read in USA Today many years ago that department store managers understand that most people go toward the right when entering a store and, therefore, this dictates that products management wants customers to see first are positioned accordingly.
Periodically, state education departments encourage schools to create mission statements, vision statements, action plans, and a whole host of plans that more often than not become shelf art if they even reach a point of completion that enables them to make it to the shelf. Rarely is there any follow-through. Rarely can you walk through the halls of a school a year after teachers have been put through time consuming activities to design these statements and find a single person who can quote the school’s mission, vision or other kind of statements - much less demonstrate that their work is being guided by it.
I am suggesting that the starting point should be a school-wide consensus on:
• How do students learn
• What does our consensus on how students learn suggest in terms of how teachers should teach
I AM NOT implying that teachers should be limited in how they teach. There are already too many schools that are using scripted lesson plans which limit the flexibility of their teachers to apply the expertise they have gained through training and experience.
There are a wide range of practices that teachers can use in classrooms that can be consistent with researched based theories of how children learn. Schools need to reach consensus on the learning theory that will guide teaching practices; then, as long as teachers can justify their practices as being aligned with sound theory, they should be allowed and encouraged to use their judgment with regard to how they teach.
If you work in a school district, can you answer this question, off the top of your head, within the next 30 seconds:
What is the theory of how people learn that guides school and classroom practices in your district?
If you are a parent and asked this question of the first ten teachers and administrators you see in the school your child attends, how many similar responses will you receive?
I have long believed int he importance of everyone having a common understanding of learning theory in a school. How can things be consistant accross a school if we have different understandings of how children actually learn. Trevor Bond and I had quite a debate over this after a conference in Queenstown some years ago and he produced this (which built on and expanded on the original in his keynote - and calls me Greg Hill) which I have used with a number of groups since.
I have also used the model to produce a personal educational philosophy. This was quite an interesting process too. How often are we made to actually think through and articulate, at a theoretical level, what we actually do. Teachers know how they will react and what they will do, but not always WHY.
A fabulous discussion to have in the staffroom/staff meeting!
This video shows the importance of communication for ALL the children we have in our schools. Thats the power of technology. It can often giving voice to ideas and communicate them in unique and/or powerful ways.
this is very cool!
Great for the classroom or cluster. Simple drag and drop interface
Stixy helps users organize their world on flexible, shareable Web-based bulletin boards called Stixyboards. Unlike most personal productivity or project management software, Stixy doesn’t dictate how users should organize their information. Users can create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks on their Stixyboards, organized in whatever way makes sense to them. Then they can share Stixyboards with friends, family, and colleagues.
I have finally had enough time this afternoon to revisit my notes from the “Inspire It, Lead It, Teach It” conference in Invercargill last week.
Sir Geoff Hampton: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/Default.aspx?page=9050
• highlighted the differences between leadership and management and emphasised th fact we need school leaders who exhibit both characteristics. White Knight leaders tend not to be able to sustain change over time and it often falls to bits when they leave a school. Managers often struggle to get anything other than paperwork achieved. The maintenance focus of the management role is essential for ongoing improvement.
• “If we seek to imitate others the best we can hope for is to eventually catch them up”
• “Currently we are falling onto the trap of making the easily measurable important, rather than striving to make the important things measurable.
• Key factors for effective classrooms/schools. Moving beyond the what we teach to the HOW:
o Motivation and engagement
o Individual goal setting
o Thinking skills
o Assessment for learning
o Transition and transfer
Dr Jeni Wilson • Goal Setting = “a wish with a deadline” LOVE THIS!!!!
Michael Pohl (VERY SIMILAR TO LAST YEARS SEMINAR IN DUNEDIN)
“thinking is not an ad-on …. It is the way we deliver the curriculum.”
• acronyms …. SCUMPS, etc.
• thinking, Feeling and Learning cannot be separated. Blooms does not address the feeling!
• Blooms - can be divided into two. Top three (of revised) are lower order and focus on facts. Bottom 3 are higher order and focus on synthesis/integration of information.
Tony Ryan Howard Gardners book “Five minds for the future” - recommended.
Resiliance
Stress and stress busting
Three types of people - energy creaters, energy neutrals and energy consumers
(another three types - make it happen, watch it happen, what happened?)
be inspired! …. FULLANS “MORAL PURPOSE”
It was a great couple of days and well done to the organisers. My only gripe would be why on EARTH would you have the conference dinner of a 2 day conference at the end of the second day. I certainly was not going to pay for another night just to go to the dinner.
Great to catch up with many familiar faces from Otago-Southland from my travels last year ….
As Jane was pointing out today it id the f2f contact that really makes the difference.
There is a real push and buzz around interactive whiteboards at the moment. I just don’t get it …
how is this:
much different to this …
The cost of putting an interactive whiteboard in a classroom in NZ is about
$12-14000 … what could we do with this amount of money? Thats a lot of digital cameras, laptops, projectors etc. I am struggling with what makes it BETTER with an IWB.
I don’t just want different I want better for any changes we make to our pedagogy and classrooms. Where is the $10k difference between a good projector/LCD screen and an IWB? Remembering that technology can just make an average teacher expensive to run how is the IWB better?
Now this is a cool tool.
takes web pages with RSS feeds or that have been tagged amkes them into a slide show. Also allows you to add music or a commentary Check out this demo
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