I have been very lucky to be travelling with a UK delegation this week that is visiting Australian schools and Departments as part of their investigation of emerging practices and issues with the use of ICTs. Owen Lynch, former CEO of Becta, with some Irish Colleagues (Tom McMullan and Jimmy Stewart - former and current CEOs of C2K in Ireland).
Schools that focus on teaching and learning, cultural change and collaborative leadership seem to make the greatest impact in integrating technology into contemporary learning. One interesting aspect of our visits is to see a shift from ‘canned’ content to open and free tools to support learning. Thanks to Derek Wenmouth who pointed to this excellent list of learning/working tools from the Centre for Learning and Performance technologies. I quite liked the categorisation of what these tools might be used for. This seems to be one of the potential barriers to uptake of new and emerging technologies, that we are not sure what these technologies might be used for.
I saw great practice that has local impact. Wouldn’t it be great for teachers to see themselves as part of a broader community and share their experience with new and emerging technologies. This is potentially the only way we can scale such signficant change within the education industry. Collaboration must be internal and external and in fact should be global.
Post a Comment