Interesting piece of research from Marie Jasinski for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. She cites some ‘chasms’ for embedding change.
1. Chasm between early adopters and mainstream - there are different reasons and expectations for these two groups to adopt new technologies. You need to address these to maintain the momentum.
2. A technology-pedagogy chasm - technology does not improve ineffective teaching - how true, and e-learning technologies are adopted at a faster rate than e-learning pedagogies.
3. An innovation chasm - Innovative practice is outpacing the readiness of organisational systems.
The report also highlights a number of recommendations:
- organisational readiness requires the right innovative practice.
- purposeful use of technology is a core competency in a knowledge society
- a strength based orientation to organisational improvement fosters innovation
This report is worth reading.
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Back to school in the UK, amidst the controversy of children’s performance gradually slipping down in maths and literacy despite £ 21billions spent on the programme to improve things.
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We have to accept the status quo within our schooling system as a leviathan that will struggle to change course easily. As parents how then do we handle the probability of our children passing through the whole system before any modification can take effect? Falling standards, compares to a football team slipping down a league, requires immense effort to recover.
If children are behind as they enter the critical move to secondary school, it can be devastating to see the numbers that switch off during this transition. If it was easy to find an answer we would be out of the woods long ago, but if a 21 billion investment has failed we cannot expect the solution to prompt or entirely school driven.
Literacy and numeracy skills benefit from a high degree of practice and repetition. This can be dull and boring or entertaining and fun depending on the approach. Parents taking a lead at home can now support their child through the range of educational games – used in school, that can pay dividends through additional practice at home.
Maths games to practice multiplication and division, and English games to practice say grammar and proof reading skills have opened the door to a hidden army of parents. Taking a more constructive role in supporting their children can lead to a significant boost in performance in school and a desire to learn more.
Alistair Owens
www.keen2learn.co.uk
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