Alan Hird, Director, Professional Learning Team at the Department of Education, Employment, and workplace relations (DEEWR) spoke about the relationships that have been developed to govern the DER. He spoke particularly about the Australian ICT in Education Committee (AICTEC) which is taking responsibility for determining the priorities for the spend of the DER. AICTEC is establishing a sub-committee to look at professional development. This committee called ‘Teaching for a Digital Age’ will take carriage of professional development priorities. Alan indicated that a survey undertaken by Monash University in 2006 indicated that approx 20% of teachers want to know how better to interact with parents, and more recent survey indicated this had grown to over 80% of teachers.
But teachers want is not necessarily a top down approach. They are looking for support to enable a grassroots up revolution as well. A revolution that helps then to ‘connect’ with the community, their kids and engage them in learning that is authentic and relevant. This is not a one size fits all approach, in fact its very much about personalised learning.
Thanks to Derek Wenmouth, who linked to a resource ‘100 helpful web 2.0 tools for every kind of learner’ where the authors have arranged tools according to learning style. We need more of these types of resources that help students and teachers choose the appropriate tool for the appropriate learning situation. A web tool wizard for teachers and students.
education.au is holding a national symposium on e-portfolios today. We have just seen four presentations alluding to the fact that e-portfolios at an institution level are already used significantly. However, as Jerry Leeson pointed out, if the web is shifting to a more learner centred mode, then the e-portfolio world is very complex from a learner’s perspective. At each point they enter an institution they are likely to require a new identity, start from scratch in terms of achievements, acrreditation and qualifications, and then when they leave have some difficulty taking a record of their new found skills with them. Given the focus on productivity, human capital and digtal literacy it seems that these tools would be a very useful way to assist lifelong leaners. But as I said it’s complex and our role should be about making it simple, removing the barriers to learner’s access and control of their learning.
What we are seeking today is some direction for achieving simplicity for the learner. Interestingly, a survey undertaken by education.au suggested the driver was not necessarily the learner. This is such a new tool, perhaps learners are not aware that they may already be leaving their digital footprint on the internet. (eg facebook, linkedin)
The powerpoints are available on the education.au website.
Mark Pesce is the keynote for the ACER/education.au symposium. He speaks of the generation gap between those wacky kids and those well meaning adults. He has now made his speech available on video and in text.
In my presentation I show a video of people building a plane while they are flying the plane. Its a nice metaphor for what we have been doing for sometime. We seem to be making it up as we go along. That seems appropriate given the fast pace at which the technology and the world is moving at the moment.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=t39EAeE8ehc
A key issue that arose in my presentation is what is needed for a grassroots revolution by the teachers. Time is a barrier. What was gratifying was the very good use of technology by the schools. Two things strike me. Teachers undervalue the great work they are doing! Few see the need to share this with others (giving the time poor condition.)
My call is for teachers to become networkers and use technology to save time. Do it once and share with many was the mantra from the principal from Ringwood.
I have been reflecting on Mark Pesce’s talk where he speaks of ‘Those Wacky Kids’ and the ‘mutants’ , that is us, and how we need to bridge the generational gap. Fundamentally, kids get engaged in learning when their intrinsic motivation is high. So what sparks intrinsic motivation? Learning that relates to life and arouse curiosity, allow students a degree of control, and provide challenging and collaborative tasks. So we need to understand these wacky kids in order to link into the characteristics that increase motivation and engagement. Their world is a very different and more complex one. As Mark says we are the change agents and that is a very privileged and important position for educators to be in and the goverment recognises the importance of this position through increased funding of the DER.
Read about Mark’s comments here.
Daniel Owen (Branch Manager, Professional Learning), opened the symposium describing how the DER is based in an economic and social inclusion agenda and how this provided strong support from governments for financial backing.
There are five elements ;
- National Secondary School Computer Fund
- Broadband Infrastructure, Fibre to schools - Connecting schools.
- Online Curriculum Content
- Portals for Parents
- Assistance for schools in the deployment of ICT.
For more information, the www.digitaleducationrevolution.gov.au site contains more information.
Mark Pesce’s (how did he get this gig??) presentation was titled ‘Those Wacky Kids’. He spoke of the aliens, our kids in schools, who use technology in quite different ways to those ‘Well Meaning Adults’. Mark argues that the classroom is disconnected from the realities of the students. He argues that the first step in the revolution was to engage with the wacky kids. He says that there is a argument that kids see school as less relevant than their life experience and this is not the way to raise the next generation of leaders for Australia.
Mark showed his connections with his fellow ‘twitteratis’ and how last night he was encouraged to watch the Eurovision contest because of the funny comments he was getting from his fellow twitteratis. The comments were funnier in context.
This shows the power of the ‘C’ in ICT. Connections, collaboration, capability and capacity building in a more democratic world. Our role is to be change agents. Use the technology ourselves to share lessons learned and not be the immigrants and become the students.
January 4, 2008 – 8:26 am
The new Rudd government have said they will mandate ISP’s to provide a ‘clean’ feed to everyone is Australia…that is one which will make children safe from pornography and violence. There is much debate in the media and blogosphere about the censorship issue.
However, in education, we have been grappling with the ‘to filter’ or ‘not to filter’ issue for sometime. Not long ago, the previous government attempt to provide filters to individuals met with some smart kids who took no longer that 30 minutes to find a way around it. As dana boyd in her presentation last year says ‘you build the walls, and the kids will fly planes over them’.
The issue is how do you get the balance right between helping kids to make a smart decision (about inappropriate material) versus a safe environment (well, it can never be 100% safe - take the playground for example) and then at what cost to education.
Already, education systems in Australia at the local and state/territory level provide filters of some sort. The decisions are made at the point of use and with varying degrees of success. One common problem is that filters are indiscriminant!! They filter the good stuff as well, and so very quickly you have to make exceptions to the rules.
I’d be interested in your views about ‘to filter or not to filter’…so write in and lets get some debate going here.
December 21, 2007 – 1:54 pm
Having just returned from Europe where I sat on a review panel for the European Commission, attended the GENIE(Global Exchange Network of ICT Educators) and EMINENT conference, and met with officials in England, Scotland and Ireland, I am left with the following impressions of the challenges we face in 2008.
Scaling change - Most countries around the world have invested millions in technology and yet it has made little difference to approximately 85% of practitioners and teachers in schools. And yet, there are excellent examples of innovative and best practice in every system I go to? Has the time come where social networking technologies will enable connections to facilitate knowledge sharing and build capacity for change?
19th century buildings, 20th Century teachers and 21st Century learning - there is an acknowledgement that technology has impacted signficantly on the skills and literacies of young people outside of formal education and what they bring into schools. Slowly, but surely across the whole sector we know we have to change….curriculum, assessment, organisational structures, past practices
Telling the story to parents and the media - recently in the UK, I was watching a morning TV program where they had experts discussing the importance of handwriting and whether cursive or print was quicker- for a moment I had to check what century I was living…but the TV presenters were absolutely convinced this was extremely important (it was in their day)…and then the next item was about the terrors of the Internet!! We need to do a better job at communicating to parents, Industry and the media that these kids today have something to offer that we can’t continue to ignore.
It is refreshing then to have a Prime Minister that I hope ‘gets’ the digital story. I look forward to 2008.
Have a Merry Xmas and New Year.
November 20, 2007 – 9:40 am
Laurence Lessig’s vodcast about the read/write web is a powerful argument for common sense and the law!!
Lessig uses three stories about 100 year old concepts which made sense 100 years ago, but don’t make sense now. And when our kids re-mix using technology that was not available to those who made copyright laws many years ago, he says quite powerfully ‘We cannot kill our kids instincts, we can only criminalise, we cannot stop them creating, but we can drive it underground, we cannot make our kids passive again, we can only make the pirates!
Please…… please have a listen to this recent presentation by Laurence on the Read/Write web.
November 12, 2007 – 9:12 am
The conference welcome by Susan Mann reinforced my view that teachers are important but we are facing quite different and complex issues for which we can rely on the past, but we must not resist the new ways of today’s world
David Puttnam reminded us, based on his experience, that 95% of students have poor experiences at school. Einstein said there is no reason why we should solve problems with the same tools that caused them
He said that the average age of teachers receiving awards for teaching was 24 years in the UK. He then asked’ How long will they remain in the-profession where change agents are not supported’?
He said that the challenge was not about technology but how technology can be used to assist students to understand their complex and interconnected world.This is the world of the digital native
He talked about how games can be used across a wide area of the curriculum. He said we most not let the disconnect between informal and formal education become a chasm.
So why is this message not getting across? Conservative media, lack of debate in community, self-servicing profession, 19th century assessment.
