Garry’s Rambles

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.