Sliced Bread

Michael McQueen spoke recently at our college. He seemed to get people talking and asking questions about our future as learners, a pity some missed out, but heres the crib sheet for those who missed his talk. 

Amongst other things to do with understanding and engaging genY Michael shares a few pointers on becoming a master asker;

Questions are indeed the answer. Regardless of whether you are an employer, a parent or a teacher, questions are the key to unlocking your young people’s creativity, imagination, and capacity to reason. If you can get good at asking questions, you are more than halfway there.

Michael also asks us to reconsider the traditional teacher role as ‘font of all knowledge’ to becoming a class facilitator.

Facilitating learning requires a different mentality and range of skills to that of being a fountain of knowledge. It means shifting from a focus on knowing the right answers to asking the right questions. By far, the most significant skill in becoming a good facilitator of learning is the ability to ask questions that are strategic and powerful.

As a history teacher with a keen interest in genealogy and family legacies, I look forward to Mr McQueen’s September 08 book, Memento-Gift of a Lifetime, in which he will no doubt expand upon his theme of the quest for wisdom in the digital age.

I also wonder how many DET NSW school leaders will tick Michael’s box at the upcoming conference?

Lauren’s recent post keeps resonating strongly. As a non ICT teacher the gizmos and jargon and ‘makemesoundimportantbuzzwords’ Lauren speaks of leave me cold. Thats why I like her blog so much.

I see and can appreciate the powerful learning web2.0 offers but my core question has always been why learners learn and how do they do it best? 

… students articulated what powerful learning was for them and as a school and as teachers we responded.  We reevaluated where our goals were.  We had to change the goal which said “we want to integrate more technology” to “we want to teach powerful inline with our students needs”  elearning was a term no longer used in the middle years at our school and the pressure was off and the power boundaries changed as well. 

Reflection time was an essential part of every class and teachers developed goals with the students for the next lesson.  Teachers did have to integrate technology but it was from the students needs, each class had student mentors who assisted in making powerful learning possible with a multitude of technologies.  As a group we had moved beyond teachers always having to know the how and the what but assisting with the why ! All this without elearning or eteaching? Who would of thought?

Just like many teachers do, ask your student learners and they will tell you how they best learn. Mark said at our recent staff meeting, student reflection through the SOAR and ROAR programs is important, makes a difference and needs reinvigorating. I agree. 

Deep reflection must be integral to genuine learning, not ‘big brotherish’ or rushed or tacked on or imposed or checked as a punitive measure. It should also be modelled. I’m glad we are changing our student diaries to reflect this. Give ownership, choice and real motivation to engage and learners will. I’ve always preferred carrots to sticks, if you like. 

I like blogging because it is a conscious reflection when I choose and on what topics I choose. No one so far comments on or probably reads my posts for that has not yet been my intention. I am clarifying my ideas on education in the digital age and starting to build a PLN of other learners who also think deeply about why they teach and how today’s learners best learn. Technology is just the tool.

I’d be interested in how an Australian version of Rate My Professors that Mark Pesce spoke about recently at the Sydney TAFE conference would be received. If such an aussie site launched it would flatten the gulf between the ‘font ofallknowledgeoldskooltypes’ to connected 21st century educators. Radical? yes. But think of the implications. This would be genuine reflection for students on something that is vital to them. Maybe other learners would then race to engage more with web2.0, if only to check their ratings. (I am joking for those NOT sure, hey MP!) Maybe “Rate My Expensive Expert Keynoter” should launch first. 

Why is Bored of Studies the hit it is? Not a lot different to the reasoning behind Rate My Professor. Ownership of a voice, responsibility to contribute ethically, discuss shared learning experiences, display digital citizenship and be purposeful in helping others. Most teachers hate BOS or are wary of it and DETNSW blocks it but there are quality learning resources amongst the sometimes questionable rest. These gems are worth digging for and actually teaches students many of the questioning skills of using the web purposefully.

As learners I’d like to know what questions do you reflect on? How do you personally reflect? How do students reflect on their learning at your place? Are you receptive to others reflecting openly on topics of their choice?

The paperless conference, “Technology Enhancing Quality Teaching” to launch NSW DET Interactive Classrooms was held on June 24th. CCP Bulletins update us on the progress of the CCP, a succinct read.

Trevor Fletcher, Deputy Director General DET NSW, said teachers who integrate ICT effectively are “mindful of their knowledge of pedagogy, content and technology”. Onya Trev.

My belief is a sound knowledge and appropriate application of current learning research in the digital age is a significant factor in the successful integration of ICT. If we explicitly know how today’s younguns learn best, then we should have even more successful lightbulb moments. How cool is that?

Steven Wilson, DET Chief Info officer, also announced gmail as the new DET student email and that school staff email will move into corporate email later in 2008. Hang on for a few bumpy rides in the DC3 of DET NSW as the turbulance of change descends rapidly on those who just got their heads around the current 6 year old email system. Yeeha me thinks, ‘your emergency exits are here, here and here’

I am glad the boffins said regional training for CCP will meet local needs and develop key competencies in Activstudio. But I’m really really really disappointed this free shareware cannot be installed more easily at work. I guess a month of waiting will all be worth it. Just hope its not 2 months waiting for a simple install.

Hopefully these installation issues can be resolved next week. It is extremely frustrating to want to learn and apply new ideas, then be told by our DET leaders that these free programs are available to download and then not be able to install them due to whatever issues.  How do I get my voice heard? 

This presentation, simply entitled Pay Attention, was created by Darren Draper in an effort to motivate teachers to think about 21st Century Digital learning and its implications in their classrooms for their students.

EdublogsTv will enable me to share learning videos with staff and students at school, I hope.

NOT one of my Year 7 to 11 students use or had heard of Twitter as of last week. I can now show them this introductory video. (edoblogsTV coding glitches still to be sorted, It appears you can only embed ONE edublogsTV video at a time as soon as i add the next video, the video i wanted to show you about twitter disappears)

I’ll post the direct twitter link here until the coding issue is sorted out.

Also Suzie Boss’s interesting article ‘Twittering not Frittering’ is worth a look to see if this 2006 free app can be used as a valuable PD tool. I’m still not convinced, ya gotta do better Suzie. HELP.

… using Twitter for professional development is a good model for twenty-first-century learning. He’s found it especially useful for learning how to integrate podcasting, blogs, wikis, and other tools in his classroom.

And if he runs into a challenge, he knows right where to turn for help. “I can watch and learn from people who jump out and try things early,” he says. “Once I gather information from observing, then I’m ready to apply it myself in my situation. Watch, observe, apply. It’s been great.”

I want you to convince me that I should sign up and become a twatterer, if thats the past tense of twitterer?

Remember I am a non mphone owing luddite who is yet to send his first sms, so you better have good reasons if the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to buy me a new mdevice as a birthday present next week. How have you used twitter for learning? I want a new phone, do your best.