Sliced Bread

Your blog, All Teachers are Learners – All Learners are Teachers has caused considerable Thought Provoking. Always passionate about learner centred approaches and taking a refreshingly non tech view of the future of school education. Tech is only a tool, a blunt one sometimes, but absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

As Graham Wegner blogged recently, its reassuring when professionals engage in their core business because they choose to, not because they have to. Contemporary PD for teachers is definately as shown in Graham’s second list. It gives us PBL choice, something we should all strive to provide for in student assessments.

Tomaz Lasic has done an amazing job with Moodle at his school and also gets a blog gong from me for his top stuff and making me think. ICT is now more integrated and used by some once tech shy staff, a fantastic leap forward for digital learning. The 70:20:10 rule in my blog title is also attributed to Tomaz, well he made me aware of it.

Darcy has helped with a NSW DET perspective and shared resources. Thanks for your insights into how schools in NSW can connect at the point of need on shared programs. Your school development day post should also be compulsory reading for all DET staff who want to move forward. Love your videos too Darcy, always gets a laugh at my shack.

Chris Betcha is next to come on down and say a few words. Betchablog is just good on so many levels and should be compulsory reading for all teachers. Thought Provoking, well researched, passionate about moving learning forward, generous with shared tutorials that helped me learn and at times the refreshing controversy, because change needs leaders like Chris.

 John Larkin, history teacher extraordinaire, gets an award too. His quality resources for history are just so good, my learners have abandoned my rough and ready wiki and are now favouritising John. You go learners, whatever works, do it and learn. His “How far did you roam as a child” post really struck a chord with me. Great stuff. Alerting me to Posterous was also helpful as a potential PD tool.

Vicki Davis a cool cat teacher and one of the Flat Classroom gurus from Septopia gets the next to last prestigious award, from humble old me. Vicki’s enthusiasm, never say “can’t” and evangelical zeal for change is eventually infectious. We can learn a lot from this post especially.

Where there is no vision the people perish.  So many feel like hamsters on a wheel.  Do the same thing every year, don’t change, don’t improve. “

I tried to stay away initially, all a bit too advanced for me, I was floundering. But no, as my web2.0 confidence has grown these last 3 months, I’m drawn back to Vicki’s CCT blog and I am now starting to learn whats really to come with powerful 21st century learning. I hope others I work with also engage.

My last and most important award goes to 2MGems. They are special. They are real 21st century learners and they have a cool blog. Love your work, go kids.

The rules for this award are as follows:
(1) Put the logo on your blog

(2) Add a link to the person who awarded you

(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
(4) Add links to those blogs on yours
(5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

7 blogs that I find inspiring, motivating and thought provoking are those listed above.

Ok Tuncurry staff, you have made it this far. Well done. 

(For other visitors, please add your views on the broader web2.0 changes you have seen in the last 4 years, why is it so powerful as a learning tool and what are the implications for education)

Tuncurry staff, you now know what these DET NSW and Web2.0 words mean and are ready to post your answers, what is the next step. Now reduced to 7 words, see if you understand the implications of these, not just the definitions.

                          CCP                          Web2.0                     gmail                    VC            

                                    Creative commons        Wikis              PLN or PLE       

Comment about what you have learned about any of the future directions introduced during the week 6 staff meeting. (or even something funny to make us laugh at the next staff meeting, come on Al and Mick PUN it up, we will review our learning, TAS staff to start the discussion, hey Lee?)

Follow the comment directions to post your answers (name, email, anti spam code)

Your answer may take a little while to appear so bookmark this page and come back later to see what others are saying and sharing.

Paul may even post his daily funny here for us as well. (HINT HINT Paul!!)

If you want to have a crack at the prizes, help is available back at Thought Provokers or ask any of the Just in Time Learning Team. We are happy to help individuals or faculty groups. Just ask us.

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?