presenters

The keynote videos are now all available on the ULearn08 site. You can watch Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach discussing the ways in which we need to equip our students for working in a networked age. Karen Sewell, John Hattie and Rod Oram examine the needs of 21st century learners and what more schools could be doing to move our students forward. Steven Carden talks about possibilities for business and education partnerships for the 21st century. This includes details of a project he founded, First Foundation, where a number of New Zealand businesses provide scholarships to support students with academic potential who are financially disadvantaged. Derek Wenmoth (chair), Tania Coutts, Beverly Kaye, Carolyn Stuart, and Linda Tame look at the integration of ICT from a variety of perspectives including a powerful message from the early childhood sector that children there are already being equipped with skills at that level so we need to be building on this in other education sectors.

There are also a range of wikis that were developed as part of ULearn08 that you might want to check out. Lenva Shearing put together a Getting tricky with wikis wiki set up in Wikispaces that gives you many tricks to move beyond the basics of wiki design. You can learn how to do things like making a table of contents on wiki pages or finding out how to easily add your students as members of the wikispaces. Make sure you also look at the links on the home page to Lenva’s other resource wikis.

Suzie Vesper from CORE Education ran a pre-conference workshop on Blogs, wikis and the online tools that make them pop. You can find the basics of what web 2.0 means and the differences between blogs and wikis and comparisons of some of the major online providers. You can find many examples of how these are being used in education and a table of 44 tools that can be used in conjunction with blogs and wikis.

Want to see some reflections from teachers of their experiences at ULearn? Have a look at the Nga-Taonga cluster wiki page where attendees have put together their thoughts around the presentations and sessions that they attended.

Five spotlight videos are now available for viewing on the ULearn08 website. You can view spotlight presentations by Julia Atkin, Westley Field, Greg Gebhart, Nicola Yelland, and Mark Treadwell. The final two spotlights, and those of our keynotes, will be available shortly.

Please note that the synchronising of video and presenter slides while editing the video may result in some variance from the conference session. Also, some presenters used media files which we have not been able to include in these video versions.

Presenters have given permission for these presentations to be made available online for 4 months to conference attendees by login access to this ULearn08 website, for the purpose of further professional discussion in ICT PD cluster schools. We do not have permission to provide DVD copies of the presentations.

Supporting materials for some spotlight presentations can be accessed from the Find presenters’ material knowledge base.

Listen to the interview between our keynote speaker, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, and Kim Hill. The interview was broadcast on Radio New Zealand National Saturday morning. You can access the podcast online.

Just a reminder to presenters to please post your presenters’ material on the ULearn08 site. If you have any problems with this, please contact Angela angela.page@core-ed.net or Suzie ictpdonline@core-ed.net

The keynotes and spotlights were all videoed and most will be available for you to view online the site once they have been edited. We’ll keep you posted!

The second keynote was presented by Steven Carden. This was a highly entertaining talk with a profound message. I asked the twit network to reflect on the keynote as it was happening and you can see their comments in the image to the left (click to enlarge).

The take away message from this keynote:

We are facing or experiencing rapid, extreme change - discussions are needed about our future. What sort of society do we need to be to survive in a changing society?

Steven argued that we are not ready for this change. We forget how small we are (NZ) on the world’s stage. We do not have any profound answers… yet. Dialogue is needed.

Societies who are moving in a forward direction have three things in common:

Idea-generating
Ideas are needed to cope with a world that is changing

Idea-absorbing
Small countries like NZ can’t generate all the ideas we need. We need to absorb them from elsewhere.

Willing to change

Steven asks what does all this mean for NZ’s education sector?

1. The workforce needs highly adaptive people. The nature of jobs is changing dramatically
2. We need radically new ways of educating young people
3. It’s all about YOU - the quality of the teachers in our schools is the key.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” (Alvin Toffler)

Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach opened the ULearn08 conference with an inspirational presentation with examples of students using blogs to make a difference.

Laura is a young girl who lost her grandfather, she decided in his memory to make a difference to the world. She tells her story at her blog http://twentyfivedays.wordpress.com.

At a conference Laura was asked a question.

“Laura can you tell us how do you come up with your ideas of who to help?”
She replied “I ask my readers.”

Laura has a voice. She knows her opinions are valued. She feels empowered to make a difference and contribute. Do we allow this in our classrooms? I use the word ‘allow’ pointedly. Do our students get to use their voices?

It makes me think of the joke of the young girl spending her first week at school:
“Dad, I don’t think I’ll go to school anymore there really isn’t any point.”
“Why is that?”
“Well I can’t read and I can’t write … and they won’t let me talk.”

21st century technologies allow us to have voices, to voice our opinion, to make a difference. These technologies are available for our students, our children. We must let students have their voices and we must make sure they know how to use these voices in an ethical manner and in a safe way.

That is our job as educators.

We are pleased to be welcoming back Mark Treadwell to ULearn. Mark will give a number of presentations, starting with a pre-conference workshop, then a spotlight, a series of presentations, and a featured presentation. Mark’s combination of intelligent dialogue and a sharp wit mean that his sessions are always both thought-provoking and entertaining.

Mark’s bio and abstract for his spotlight presentation are as follows:

“Whatever!” The conceptual era and the evolution of School v 2.0: A new paradigm and a new renaissance in learning

New Zealand leads the world in so many aspects of innovative education practice. In this session Mark will take you on a nationwide tour looking at innovative practices surrounding curriculum, school and centre management, assessment, use of ICT and transformation leadership. Schools and centres highlighted range from early childhood, primary, middle school, and secondary.

Our next challenge as a nation is to learn from this exemplary practice and integrate these practices across the board. Mark will briefly speak on the central nature of school and centre culture as the driving force behind systemic change within schools and centres, given that the iterative approach to professional development is simply not applicable in a time of exponential rates of change across almost every aspect of education.

Mark Treadwell has been lecturing, providing teacher seminars, and speaking at national and international conferences for over 15 years. Mark speaks on a wide range of topics including curriculum information and communications technology, thinking, teaching pedagogy for the 21st century, authentic assessment, competencies, wisdom and values.

Mark is a director of Dataview, a high-tech company which focuses on developing technology solutions for companies as well as for education authorities and schools. Dataview is involved in several MOE projects which centre on the interoperability of Student Management Systems (SMSs) and Online Learning Environments (OLEs).

Our third invited guest at ULearn08 is Tony Ryan, from Australia. Tony was a popular presenter at ULearn06 and ULearn07 and we are delighted to have him back as part of our conference this year. Tony will present a large group session during breakouts 1-4 and a smaller workshop in breakouts 5-7.

Transformational teachers

For some, the present exponential rates of educational change are a curse designed to overwhelm their lives. For others, this rapid reshaping of schooling is a powerful opportunity for redesigning the very essence of the classroom.

For those who are intent upon creating the very best that education can offer, this practical and entertaining session will clarify some of the facilitative skill sets necessary for redefining the 2014 classroom.

These transformational learning environments will be facilitated by teachers who have developed personal and professional skills for:

1. initiating valued-based and ethical learning opportunities
2. encouraging creative thinking intent within everyday interactions
3. offering solution-focused inquiry-based units of work within personal, community and global contexts
4. providing students with the capacity to manage their own learning and their self.

Most importantly, this session will help you to believe in the worth and power of teaching.

A former teacher, Tony Ryan is an educational consultant and writer, and offers professional support to school organisations throughout the world on issues such as change leadership, lifelong learning and quality classroom practice. He has presented numerous keynotes and workshops at state, national and world conferences in the past 10 years.

He has been engaged as a teacher-in-residence in over 400 schools throughout several countries. In this role, he teaches extensively, and offers guidance to teachers with their everyday practice. Many of his ideas used in his work can be found in his blog at http://tonyryan.edublogs.org

Tony is a prolific author of books on effective thinking and learning. These books include The Ripple Effect, Thinkers Keys for Kids, Mindlinks, Brainstorms, Thinkfest and The Clever Country Kits. His latest CD-Rom features a comprehensive update of Thinkers Keys. His site at www.tonyryan.com.au contains numerous free downloads of his material.

Tony is a director of School Aid (www.schoolaid.org), a non-profit organisation that co-ordinates post-tragedy fundraising and social justice programs within 10000 schools around Australia.

ULearn08 features sessions by our two youngest-ever presenters!

Michael Griffin is a Year 9 student at Lincoln High. He was a student tech helper at ULearn07 in Auckland and is a young, practising, digital native. He is being employed at his old school as an ICT assistant.

Liam Merton is a Year 9 student at Otumoetai College. He enjoys PE, English and excels at sailing. He also enjoys using UMAJIN Creative.

Michael and Liam will be presenting two taster sessions during breakout 4. Their session abstracts are as follows:

1. One digital native demonstrates creative collaboration with technology. Michael Griffin is a capable young high school student. Here is your chance to see a digital native in action. Michael podcasts regularly and is also a UMAJIN Creative enthusiast. (Presented by Michael)
2. ‘Blue screening’ in UMAJIN. Creative  ideas for using it with a range of classroom technologies. We will introduce UMAJIN Creative as easy to use, Kiwi-made software, demonstrating the UMAJIN Creative interface and how easy it is to “blue screen” your digital photos. UMAJIN Creative has some cool effects that kids love to use and we will show you some of the documents we have made and explain ways teachers can use it in class room on HP Touch Screen Laptops, Smart Boards and for writing up class projects. (Presented by Michael and Liam)

Come along during breakout 4 to see and hear these two digital natives in action!

We are pleased to have Dr Rosemary Hipkins, a special invited guest, present at ULearn08. Rose will be presenting during breakouts 5 and 7. Her abstract and bio are as follows:

Assessment issues associated with the implementation of the New Zealand Curriculum

Rose Hipkins, New Zealand Council of Educational Research (New Zealand)

In this talk, Rose will address debates about assessment of newer aspects of the curriculum – in particular the key competencies. Should we do this, and if so, for what purpose? She will link these questions to the challenge of so-called “21st century learning” and introduce some possible strategies for addressing assessment issues that arise.

Dr Rosemary Hipkins is a chief researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. She works in a range of projects, and is currently serving on two national advisory panels with a focus on assessment, as well as another two focused on New Zealand’s curriculum reforms.

Rose has a strong interest in science education, and is currently working on two assessment projects in this area. These are part of a future-focused programme of work investigating how the OECD key competencies (as described in the revised national curriculum) might help transform teaching and assessment practice.