Garry’s Rambles

At a recent presentation on 21st Century Learning spaces a discussion ensued about some great work being done in the Paramatta diocese. What was interesting about the discussion was that the Principal’s insistence that this wasn’t about technology driving but learning driving change. This included the need for leadership in the school to be guiding a cultural change in a way that all staff, students and the school community were all on the same page (ie vision, goals, benefits, strategy, risks, costs, new buildings etc.) My presentation can be found on our resource page that contains many articles and resources around this issue and here is a link to the latest article, ‘Rethinking the School Corridor‘
A recent report ‘The end of Techno-Critique : The Naked Truth about 1:1 laptop Initiatives and Educational Change‘, Weston et al, (2010) reported that a factor in the success of a 1:1  laptop program was to consider laptop computers not as technological tools but as cognitive tools that are holistically integrated into the teaching and learning process of the school.

Whilst educational change must start with the process of learning, we cannot do this without due consideration of the global world we live in, the needs of our clients,  the potential of technology to transform learning and that learning spaces themselves may constrain the learning process. Most importantly we need the school community to work together in enabling a cultural change.

This is an interesting video (thanks to Kerry Johnson) that links a World of Warcraft game to educational outcomes. It’s a practical example of how a teacher uses technology to transform teaching and learning and improve educational outcomes through engagement and self-directed learning of the students.

James Gee has for sometime been for sometime an advocate of Games for Learning. That is not necessarily funding the development educational games but using existing games which incorporate significant cognitive thinking skills.

My own kids have grown up in a media rich and games culture and they are all well adjusted (my perspective) and successful science, mathematics and now engineering graduates. I am still convinced the multi-user global game playing scaffolded and contributed to their success in problem solving complex mathematical and scientific concepts.(no proof yet)
So will the new national curriculum build upon such a disruptive innovative practice in schools? I do hope we are able to link outcomes in the national curriculum with activities that develop critical skills for the 21st century. Whilst the national curriculum’s task is to provide the curriculum and assessment framework the real challenge is the pedagogical approach that affords innovative and effective use of technologies, particularly with the Digital Education Revolution. Where will teachers go to find evidence based research that games can improve learning outcomes and then in what way can they be used in a classroom so that they are not baby-sitting devices but deep learning experience.

Currently, ACARA is consulting its draft national curriculum in English, Science, Maths and History and you can have a chance to have your say.
In a little way the first video represents a start by a teacher who is taking a risk, but if you listen to the kids, this is not a risk at all, it’s brave and should be encouraged and rewarded.

Last week I saw Charles Leadbeater talk about ‘Learning from the Extremes’ a new research report that he co-wrote with Annika Wong. Charles started with ‘education is like religion’ because it provides a shared sense of hope and better future. And yet he says, education systems established more than a century ago still under perform because they fail to reach and motivate large proportions of the population. Charles says that innovation beyond the classroom is vital to supplement school. This can only be done through disruptive innovation which will create low cost mass models for learning. Transformational learning is being pioneered in countries such as India, Venezuela and Brazil. These programs

• pull families and children to learning by making it attractive, productive and relevant
• rely on peer to peer rather than formal teaching
• create spaces for learning where they are needed
• start learning from challenges they face rather than from a formal curriculum.

Whilst many of these ideas might challenge traditional educational thinking, the report offers great insight into how systems might employ innovative improvement strategies. I can highly recommend the report.

Thanks to Judy O’Connell - yet again for her links to a great read. This link to What Matters Now by Seth Godin set me thinking about the new year. There are some wonderful and thoughtful quotes I picked out from the 43 plus contributions to this e-book. Here are some of them. Enjoy.

Dignity comes from creating your own destiny
Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder of the Acumen Fund and author of The  Blue Sweater.

The best way to get approval is not to need it.
Hugh MacLeod blogs at Gaping Void and is author of Ignore Everybody.

When times are tough, vision is the first causality….things get very tactical instead.
Michael Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers

The Web was just the proof of concept. Now the revolution gets real.
Chris Anderson is Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine

Today, with so much change and uncertainty, so much pressure and new ways to do things, the middle of the road is the road to nowhere
William C. Taylor is a cofounder of Fast Company magazine.

But if change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change, we really need to focus on raising the costs of the unsustainable systems that represent the unsustainable status quo.
Alan M. Webber is co-founding editor of Fast Company magazine

After a decade of truly spectacular underachievement, what we need now is less management and more freedom – fewer individual automatons and more autonomous individuals
Daniel H. Pink is the author of A Whole New Mind.

Getting things done is not the same as making things happen.
Gina Trapani blogs about software and productivity at Smarterware.

The secret learned by technology providers is to spend less time providing services for citizens, and to spend more time providing services to developers. Every successful technology platform, from the personal computer and the internet to the iPhone, has been profoundly generative: a small investment in open infrastructure that others can build on turns into a vast cornucopia of services.
Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media.

This is an interesting and important perspective from Europe on their policies to encourage a Digital Europe by their Media Chief, Vivienne Reding. I also noted on the same page another link that makes a strong and important statement on Internet Piracy. Whilst we have had some good reports (eg the Cutler Review) on Innovation which calls for a review of IP arrangements in Australia, and the Gov 2.0 initiative is encouraging more open forms of communication with government, education and training, I fear, will take a more conservative risk averse approach. For example, this approach to Queensland teachers using social network sites with students is but one recent move. In regards to IP, many teachers, and students, are now being encouraged to publish works on the Internet. In these ‘mashups’, really teachers have been ‘mashing up’ material from multiple sources for years, (eg the roneo, the photocopier) only now they can make them public and all too often the rights associated with use are too confusing, too complex and so the easy solution is to say ’stop it’. A strategy to encourage a Digital Australia would be to enlist teachers as digital citizens.