For a full history of Shift Happens, now with 20 million plus hits, head over to Karl Fisch’s eloquent summary.

 

If you are familiar with the numerous past Did you Knows? note the many  differences since 2007, a short 2 years ago.

Message to you Ruby? Are you really a learner? or do you say you are. If you WANT to answer affirmatively then have the courage to get out from under our excuse rocks, make even more mistakes, experiment and forget the teaching to the test.  That is providing my employer shows the requisite trust in return.

Nothing in Did You Know 4 is particularly cutting edge, it is however a timely and valuable update. The statistical summation is now contemporary but fundamental school technology has not had any seminal breakthroughs since 2007. It’s just all got faster, cheaper, easier.

What has developed substantially since 2007, with considerably more urgency attached, is if you, your place of learning or your systemic goverance  has failed to move, you may well find yourself all sorts of trouble in the next 12 months. Today playing edu catch up is no longer the option it once was.

Have a look at traditional media to see their reactive doom & gloom nonsense many have been trotting out. They didn’t see the social media freight train arriving and now they are trying to play catch up or, even better lets ban and/or control social media and certainly make it hard for consumers to access.

The rate of change means today’s learners need to be fluid, shifting, agile and moving, not locked down with predetermined staid “thats how we’ve always done it” answers. Feeling “loose”, opening doors, trying new ways and ceding control is an antithesis for manylearners, especially with 20 plus time on job. New scheme teachers & interns should not be exposed but many still are mentored towards these “tried, tired and proven” ways. 

Daunting? not really. The alternatives, especially irrelevancy, are far worse. 

Accelerating change is happening;

a) despite what you or I want

b) despite what you or I are willing to accept

c) despite what closed walled bureaucracy believes

Not sure if I’m saddened or gladdened by this jazzed up Shift message, especially when placed in the context of are teachers REALLY doing the right thing by the 2022 graduates, today’s Kindy kids?

For one University’s practical response to issues raised in DYK4,  have a look at what UNSW is doing. Despite targeting an older student base, arguments raised around social media use are also valid for other age groups.

Next PD at our place, we’ll all learn the lyrics.

Song by Kevin Honeycutt from ESSDACK.

Video directed/edited by Shawn Gormley.

Over at innovate2engage, the question Yes elearning DOES suck, but for how long?  is probably closer to the real issue, pedagogical change.

Amongst many points Henry asks learners to consider; (my italics)

• Filtering & blocking (child protection, duty of care)
• tech access, equity & the participation gap (haves & have nots)
• validation of more diverse learning experiences (Is the HSC broken?)
• bury the simplistic “immigrant and native” furphy (finally, please)
• ethics, responsiblity & accountability of knowledge production (digital citizenship)
• authentic connections with and for learners (walled gardens vs real world)
• Will open source exchange based on discernment and trust be realised? (network solvent vs community glue)
• Developing judgement, networking, appropriation skills (teaching)
• virtual communities & games as learning (Now pedagogy)
  
  

Edutopia, “What Works in Public Education” has more on their Digital Generation project.    

Whilst in other news, Scott McLeod comments at Dangerously Irrelevant “Can’t wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two.”

That may ultimately be a crucial assessment litmus for 1:1 etal ICT.

But thats way too long, and damaging, to wait. Especially if  the baubles of now become more of what ICT has been.

What is your “new” first priority in regard to fundamentally shifting learning ?

I enjoyed

• Five Recommended Readings?
• Participatory Media Literacy. Why it matters?
• Waking up to the Economies of Networked Learning
• Newspapers & thinking the unthinkable
• Transforming Schools for the Future
• Digital Youth Project summary
• Fluid Learning

Try this quick quiz, dead easy it is.

To date, which scenario has had more impact on DET NSW connected learning? 

a) “Extrinsically imposed employer/political pressure because web2.0 connected learning is coming via massive and never seen before financial investment, “ready, fire, aim” style.”

OR

b) “Intrinsically lets engage because I actually want to personally take deep individual ownership and walk the walk in my learning and leadership life?”

I am seriously curious as to the main motivations and attitudes behind the current positive DET shift we are seeing. 

The answer will have an enduring impact on the up take and embed rate of any transformational change DET expects.

If teachers understand why? with real purpose, learning will stick bottom up b) style but if its DET mandated and imposed from above, learning will be reduced to box ticking a) style.

ICT has been in schools since before I arrived in 1985 so it sure isn’t new. With this massive injection of edrev largesse we need to do something fundamentally different this time so we see transformation for kid’s futures. If I was cynical, web2.0 tools are not new or difficult skills to learn, I’d be leaning to a) above. Luckily I’m not.

There is a palpable sense of major urgency within DET, almost panicky misalignment, amongst higher up DET bureaucrats charged with specific fields of the wide gambit of connected learning responsibilties.

Elements of ICT rollouts still have elements of “left hand/right hand” as different DET departments push their connected learning project barrows as if riding the carnival dodgems at side show alley.

Whoops, sorry L4L, didn’t see you coming so soon, you must have got some real super polly fuel to get here so quick.

Hey CCP get outa my way you old timer, I’ve got a modern web2.0 tool suite to deliver but L4L has just cut me off, again!

Oy! shut up down the back there and stop running off course, none of you will have anything if we don’t get my paradoxically improved bandwidth and restrictive filters in place” 

As Sharon Strzelecki says, “Play noicer, please, guys”.

 

 

If leaders themselves have no metacognition of or deep personal engagement with the changes they are pushing, then teachers will quickly sense the superficial lip service. 

Can’t blame them, but hey guys this web2.0 stuff is NOT new and maybe we should have been playing the web2.0 game a tad longer than just now?

 Playing connected learning catch up may lead to enduring pain if all the components do not align. We don’t want our dodgems spinning wildy in circles as DET jumps on the back to spin our wheel and get us going again.

Idealistically scenario two is my personal carrot response.

It’s the one I’m trying to promote at my place through DIDOW. Trying hard to create the individual need of why transformative participative learning (web2.0 if we must!) is stronger by raising awareness and changing attitudes, in baby incremental steps.

Early days but so far I think its working. I’d rather teachers know the why and build their own PLNs so they can feel the networked learning difference themselves.

This is what all school leaders at all levels should be doing now. PLN’s only take a technical day or less to set up. Even our most tech shy participant was heard to comment “RSS feeds of my delicious links into netvibes was really easy” Language unheard of only weeks ago. They also understand how their own PLN will organically grow if they contribute, share and teach others.

No one wants another DET mandated brick in the wall on connected learning initiatives. Groans heard at previous School Development Days (SDDs) has been loud as top down mandated attitude adjustments wrapped as “policy” has been force fed on the troops. It is so obviously just DET ticking DET boxes for DET motives and no real professional learning ever occurs.

Stop it DET and start trusting us to professionally learn for ourselves, just give us some time to engage. A place to authentically share our professional learning via eportfolios will be welcome too. Carrot or the stick? It’s your call DET NSW. I know which way my kids respond.

L4L are planning teacher think tanks, the blinkers are off and learning barriers are coming down. Laptops for Learning (L4L) bulletin 3 was again informative clbulletin03 and may answer more questions. At least I found it more easily than edition 2 in the DET NSW intranet, someone must be listening at DET HQ?

Now if only the counter intuitive web1.0 portal, excessive DET filters and lack of RSS feeds can be sorted, I’d be a happy camper indeed. 

There is critical infrastructure work to be tackled on these issues if DET is to be taken seriously as a web2.0 player. That’s what worries me in the longer term about transforming our Public Schools ICT and connected learning initiatives. I still can’t sense the bigger picture alignment as earnest project managers furiously micro manage their little boxes of a far larger picture.

Wish you well in your local and/or general attitude adjustment missions.

Ours is on track and staff are asking, doing, engaging and experimenting with all that we’ve been given so far. Some of the tools we are learning are posted below.

  RSS in Plain English via Commoncraft

  Social Bookmarking eg Del.icio.us in Plain English via Commoncraft.

Independent learners may prefer this online Time4 module. It is one of the best and simplest self tutorials and covers all the topics you need to establish your own Personal Learning Network (PLN).

Sue Waters, the edublogger, also has PLN starter advice with great links to all the basic tools.

Feeling a little torn between “yay” and “oh dear!” today.

Did we just belly flop in the shallow end or have we launched a 10 metre 3.9 degree of difficulty, with pike? Quality learning style that is.

Sitting here on Saturday and reflecting on the past 48 hours of Quality Teaching and Professional Learning, I have mixed feelings on the experience. It was mostly positive of course, but I also sense the lost opportunities when my employer still delivers 20th century PD almost a decade into the 21st.

The 70:20:10 rule is also still alive and well but I sense our leaders are aware of, if not yet on top of, the dilemna this causes. One of my concerns is articulated by a valuable presenter we had the pleasure to work with. Tony Ryan says;

Many annual conferences are designed predominately as an entertainment and social function. Naturally, this is an important focus for that vital time-out every year.
Unfortunately, the quality of learning that takes place is often much less effective. Delegates regularly leave the venue and remember little of the necessary information that has been shared with them.

Tony Ryan has some thought provoking ideas on future learning when he says;

who we are as educators will be more important than what we teach.”

Energisers, ethicists, entrepreneurs and environmentalists”

You’d think I’d be as happy as a pig in the proverbial having just spent 2 days here, with 500 colleagues from NCR schools, all fabulous teachers I’m sure, doing amazing stuff with students.

The venue, social do, collegial conversations and food were all first class. But I still feel flat, as if I wanted more.

The distinct lack of authentic and meaningful cross delegate connectivity, even in face to face seminars, let alone any back channel amplification of our learning was probably what disappointed me the most.

The cliques of schools and colleagues who siloed without expanding their professional learning horizons was an opportunity lost. The convenors could expedite these connections, even if it is contrived.

The chance to experience and learn from others is what excites me about conferences, not the “hired gun” keynoters or experts dished up the front. As gifted as they may be, their impact is fleeting, my 500 colleagues are here to stay and do their great stuff in regional classrooms from every Monday.

It is these people who will help me become a better teacher, not some handout or website or fantriffic kit or book for sale at key note prices. PLN growth, developing real human connections and expanding our authentic local and global networks should be seen as critical learning at such f2f conferences.

A simple 20 minute formalised meet and greet was needed. Sure it is contrived but to connect face to face with fellow emailers, twitterers,bloggers or users of web2.0 or like minded curriculum collaborators or subject specialists or uses of IWB’s or connected classrooms would have established many diverse future conversations and added to our PLN’s substantially.

If I’d stated my professional interests on the conference enrollment, connection lists could be publically viewed over coffee as a 30 minute ice breaker. I would have immediately made connections with those with similiar educational goals allowing us the time to discuss ideas during the conference. Sure I eventually spoke to others and found some likemindedness, but I’m still thinking I missed more opportunities than I found.

It would be so easy to ensure NOT one possible face to face connection was missed by posting like mindedness on a pre conference wiki. This resembles the back wards planning, one of the QTL dimensions covered.

Face to face like mindedness would be established from the conference start; email, blog, connected classroom or twitter contacts could then be shared and deeper professional networks established for future reference. It would also be less embarrassing than me walking around with a sign saying ‘I Twitter, Do you?” a la the chauffeur airport greeters.

Of course I still inefficiently sought out people I know have regional responsibilities aligned with my interests.

A senior regional director, responding to individual connection requests, acted as maitre d’ at most morning teas, introducing like minded people. It was not a good look as he sprinted from each individual introduction to the next, highly wasteful of his talents and yet it would be so easy to improve and overcome.

Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciated the connection help and received answers to now follow up on, but witnessing senior leaders being used as the proverbial blue arsed fly was not a great use of human capital. This old school networking should by now have changed. A lost opportunity.

My colleagues could also have been introduced to fabulous English, Science and LOTE teachers in our regional schools who have similar professional interests to them. Their PLN would have grown substantially. This would take 15 minutes on day one to do. Another lost opportunity.

Instead we got the traditional sardine tin approach. 500 sit down, listen to lectures compliantly, turn off phones and watch the range of key note performances from engaging, adept and amusing to boring, boastful and almost belligerant.

The excellent fonts at the front, demonstrating their own mastery of QTL, even provided mild break outs for a “2 minute speed chat” or a kinesthetic “stand up sit down” game, if we were lucky. The best of the best gifted presenters who know their stuff are still great, but it’s now NOT enough. I wanted more bang for our DET learning buck and connected learning should be delivering it by now.

Unfortunatley I saw few laptops in use, phones were verboten, switched off and disconnected so twittering was minimal at best and not mentioned, let alone encouraged. The one lonely lady capturing video, I assume to podcast later, looked mighty lost most of the time and was not the example of core powerful learning visuals should be.

The 21st Century reality, when all seminars, all keynoters, all tutorials are captured and live streamed should by now be used at Regional level of NSW DET. They should set and show the connected learning agenda for others to follow.

All participants should be encouraged to connect via the new tools of learning and back channel chat should be encouraged, not forbidden. The quality of the content should be utilised by a far larger audience than the 500 physically present.

21st century learning opportunities, such as this QTL conference, should explicity demonstrate connected learning at Regional level. The 500 teachers present should have been shown our regional priority of connected learning, in action.

This slideshare shows us the power of humans, especially slide 45.

Technology is NOT, or should not be, the principle focus of connected learning futures. In places that deeply understand the changes facing networked learning, technology does not habitate the same pedastal DET NSW elevates it to. To place connected learning under a regional ICT umbrella, does the power of future human networks a grave disservice.

Connected learning should equal integrated mandatory learning. It is not an ICT appendix that learners, leaders and others then chop out if they feel a pain or they do not engage in it themselves. Of course if the current ICT appendix turns septic and explodes in our system due to ignorance, we will all face a far more major problem.

Imagine the ripple effect that would have back in their schools?

Participative use of modern tools should be integrated at all learning levels, starting with lead learning at conferences such as these. Imagine these 500 teachers, wirelessly connected, twittering, and networking in real time with each other and their remote colleagues. Some say disruptive, I say powerful collaboration.

All 500 report back in real time on what they are being shown and taught by their own lead learners on exactly what a 21st Century networked teacher is. Don’t dare say it’s an ICT/technology responsibility for that defeats any understanding of what the future of connected learning holds.

Maybe next year our key Quality Teaching and Learning conference will be substantially different. I hope so for it is always good, it just needs to lead by example. Shanghai08 and BECTA may be two such conferences we can learn from and model on.

Hope to see you at Coffs Harbour for Regional QTL in 2010. These 25 tools might be a common language we share by then.

The tender cull from 21 to 6 was announced yesterday  and includes Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Asus, Lenovo and ASI.

The wireless list will also be culled from 15 to the winner before installs start in 571 NSW schools in April.

I hope schools are ready. It will be interesting to watch the ready, fire, aim approach.

cl-bulletin-no-2 NSW DET laptop Bulletin Number 2 gives a comprehensive update, I just wish the link on their website was easier to find.

Please FIX YOUR BROKEN WEB1.0 SITE DET NSW and yes I am yelling, because no one is listening.

Queensland DET’s at least looks vaguely web2.0ish with RSS and intuitive navigation.

There will soon be a bulk wireless arrival at a school near you, coming, ready or not! 

Thanks to Stu Hasic for alerting me to today’s DET newstand. In part it says;

The roll-out will begin this year (2009) with all public high school teachers having a laptop by 2012. The roll-out to teachers complements the laptop program for the state’s 197,000 senior high school students…

… $28 million of Australian Government funding will be used to provide teachers with professional development in the use of the new technology.

Has edutopia been unveiled? Has the world really turned flat? Has the gatekeeper left the building? Somehow I think not, but it is another significant educational step for 1 million DET NSW users.

No more messy computer room bookings, no more connectivity issues, no more ‘not enough working reliable’ computers, no more work in pairs (or groups of 6 or more) no more equity and access issues at home, no more no more no more, excuses why we never use ICT even?

In no way will this happen rapidly but new questions are being asked of us and the stakes are raised considerably higher because of this roll out. Who is ready? Who actually wants to change pedagogy now the basic toolbox is provided? Or is it all sounding too much like hard work?

The news is also somewhat bitter sweet and raises more questions than it answers. That to me is a positive development for it will, no should, challenge all teachers to consciously engage and ask, what will I do with these devices in my classroom to enhance learning?

Three options I can see;

1. Dust catching paper weights or 
2. expensive electronic pencils or 
3. one embodiment of a connected 21st century learner.

Which will you pick folks for the ball is now in our courts. We have some TPL time, some budget allocated, the tools are coming soon but is the neccessary human wherewithal also present? I wonder.

Or do you see these laptops as the 2009 version of stealth pedagogical bombers? Have they snuck in under misaligned teacher radars and will they drop a few clangers before we get a handle on their correct deployment? You betcha, its all part of the steep learning curve. Providing we don’t indiscriminantly shoot them down as they fly in overhead and land. These are not mysterious WMD, hiding under a Dubya Bush, I believe they are here to help and I’d hate to think enfilading friendly fire will slow their arrival.

Deep down I am an optimist, an educational idealist, some say dreamer and ”it will all work out well in the end kinda guy”. Always have been, but on this one I am still tentative, raw even, concerned but concurrently excited. It’s a weird feeling really.

I have a fantastic new toy I want to share with my playmates, but I am not so sure we are playing the same game or even reading the same rule book. Daily examples of antiquated thinking are really starting to test my patience with overt blockers who don’t want to get it. I am getting testy with expert web1.0ers who still think ICT is about MS, IE7, proprietary software, email and a screen, a simple non human interactive device for geeks.

The human connectivism of PLN’s is real. It is through these human connections we have access to empowered learners taking responsibilty, not passively waiting to be told what to do next or worse TTWADI, read the script, thanks for your work as usual Tomaz. 

That is one major shift in attitude needed if, specifically these laptops, and more widely the read/write web are to ultimately make even minor dents in the pedagogical fortresses some are entrenched behind.

But the “lets give it a go, make mistakes together and I am prepared to change if you teach me crew” are the ones coming along for the bumpy learning ride. Luckily in our place I feel that’s the majority. Let go and relax a bit folks, don’t say can’t or won’t and realise no one has all the answers. There will be stuff ups, clangers and disruptions to traditional learning roles, but I am excited by that not afraid.

Is our place ready? Will these be used well? I am saying a resounding YES! but it will take time, trust and support.

For those unfamiliar with DET NSW here is their (very old school website1.0) summary of ICT. (my red highlight warns of the political rhetoric and glib spiel contained in such releases. DET NSW your website1.0 IS broken, badly, fix it and align it to something like smart classrooms from the QLD DETs)

Computers in NSW public schools

The NSW Government will spend more than $1.2 billion on IT in public schools over the next four years.

The program will make NSW public schools one of the largest and fastest school IT networks in the world, e.g.:

If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance. Orville Wright

I link Wright’s words to this question “Has the NSW BOS HSC reached it’s use by date for today’s learning?”

Today’s Australian IT News (etal) announced a new international assessment review will investigate high stakes school assessments, such as the NSW Board of Studies Higher School Certificate Exam (HSC).  The article states;

… that reforming student assessment is the key to transforming education to bring it into the 21st century.

The executive director of the review will be Australia’s National Curriculum Board Head Professor Barry McGaw and will be co-ordinated through MERI at Melbourne University.  

Is anyone seeing synergies for Australian Education reform?

Here we have the head of Australia’s emerging 2009 National Curriculum working con-currently on an international review of antiquated,summative and high stakes school assessment that have reached their collective use by dates. (my italics)

The policy paper was launched at the Learning and Technology World Forum in London yesterday. Professor McGaw

will oversee five working groups headed by other education experts charged with specifying 21st-century skills in a way that can be measured…

The red highlight is critical. 21st century tools and skills, vital as they are, will remain marginalised diversions to what a majority still see as the measure of ”real school learning” (UAI scores, NAPLAN, School Merit Lists, HSC results, media league tables, stressful competitive comparsions etal) 

Until HSC style summative assessment, that NSW education stakeholders feel beholden to, is substantially reformed, attempts to embedd more meaningful and relevant learning into the mainstream will be nigh impossible.

The miniscule number innovating now can, or should be able to, accurately answer this question.

After applying, how have we measured improvement?

I hope early adopters are keeping their micro measurements of successful learning transformation for that is the evidence also needed at the macro level. It is the only evidence governments will respond to, when their education systems are openly compared on global league tables such as PISA and OECD. Ironic isn’t it? almost bully like in fact.

That is the crux of embedding systemic change. If meaningful assessment is unavailable to demonstrate and prove the ’21st century skills and tools mantra’, then sorry, any leader will baulk at supporting what really remains just an interesting experiment, tinkering in the back shed style. 

This international assessment review should be the catalyst that forces the slumbering giants of education to actually ”get it”. As earnest as the disassociated minnows currently working wonders on the case by case, school by school level are, meaningful change will not occur until the powerbrokers change their measure of schooling, that is assessment.

The few innovators at the chalk face, the day to day doers, will keep plugging away because they already know this learning is what is needed, but they are having a hard time proving it beyond their tiny insular echo chambers. This must change and annoucements such as this review are important macro steps.

McGaw has wanted to align results with OECD,PISA and other educational indicaters that governments actually respond to for many years. No country likes coming out poorly in these results, whether or not we believe or respond to them, governments do. 

Therefore assessment reform is really the first imperitive before any other ’21st century’ change. Leaders need to see outcomes that are manifestly better than previous methods. Change for changes sake? No thanks.  

The policy paper outlines initial core skills as the basis for a new kind of assessment, covering

• creativity and innovation
• critical thinking
• problem-solving
• communication
• collaboration
• information fluency
• technological literacy

It argues that high-stakes assessments, such as Year 12 exams, determine what is taught in schools irrespective of what is dictated in the formal curriculum, and so changing the assessment will change what students learn.

More of this horse before the cart thinking is needed. In the article McGaw also says not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, acknowledging the current system is not broken but needs serious tweeking. The pace of any assessment reform should be called to question as even this review also has a three year life. Is that too long? Yes.

Our new National Curriculum can have as many motherhood objectives about “transformative 21st Century Learning”, but unless assessment substantially changes, teachers will continue to teach towards high stake exams, for myriad reasons.

If the 7 skills identified above are not meaningfully assessed, then they simply will NOT be taught in the mainstream. End of story.

Everything else that innovators attempting to drag leaders, colleagues, parents and students into the 21st century will be resigned to a patronising tinkering status.

But really, who can blame them? Teachers do what we know and do as we are told but is that really good enough now for our 2009 Kindy students graduating in 2022? Will a summative assessment ala HSC really prepare them for their future? No.

Know your destination before you choose your mode of transport. What we currently have should not be adjudged as the ultimate dictate of learning worth or success in the second decade of the 21st century.

The world has moved on, so should education, starting with assessment.

After last weekends Federal COAG ICT largesse, its reassuring embattled Premier Rees has wasted no time in calling for new DET NSW technology supply tenders.

As part of the Federal edrev, DET NSW have on their wish list the lure of a sub $500 “compact learning devices (CLD’s)” for all 197,000 Year 9 to 12 students and more importantly wireless connectivity for 571 DET schools to be installed by February 2010. Tick, good. Very.

Guess the other 1500 DET sites, mainly primary schools, with students K to 8 don’t yet qualify for CLD’s or wireless connectivity and will fall further behind other systems, for a while longer. Cross, very. Maybe DET Primary Schools should just apply for an XO ala OLPC. Seems about how valued they are by DET NSW, currently.

The $1245 per student increase is also welcome news and may indicate Rudd is genuine in his bid for transparency in his new style of federalism. Lets hope so because Australians were promised a new approach to the passe blame game during the last election campaign.

Hopefully this rapid tender announcement reflects a state government committed to delivering the long promised technology improvements for Public Education students in NSW. I agree with Simon Job who also hopes Netbook specs don’t fill the tender, but Alex Serpo over at ZDNet believes the new CLD’s will be linux OS on netbooks to meet the $500 tender. (edit 12/12/08 or have a look here for yet more opinions)

Maybe we’d just be better off with these, or similiar. 

Celebratory restraint me thinks, until we see the actual laptop specs and roll out begin, the wireless functionality and most importantly the vital TPL to support teachers. Will teachers as learners receive one? I wonder?

Almost makes me want to celebrate and yell “Yippee-kay-yea”, almost. But Hans has still not left the building. John McClane has work to do yet.

picture credit: DoctorWho’s at flickr

Lindsay Tanner yesterday admitted that government agencies lagged the rest of the world when it came to the use of information technology. He also flagged the government’s intention to trial web 2.0 technologies next year (my edit ahem? THAT’S 2009 and it’s only a trial?) — such as allowing staff to post blogs — to adapt policy-making to today’s technologies.

The Australian Government could and should be leading the way in adapting our old processes of consultation, engagement, policymaking and regulation to the connected world. Yet we lag behind other nations in both the scale and pace of reform,” he said.

Is stating the bleeding obvious reassuring or alarming? At least one government minister is publically talking about catching up. Wow.

Maybe, just maybe, if governments on all levels “got it”, like Lindsay is suggesting, then we would see government bureaucracies adopt 21st century read write (web2.0) designs and layouts.

The NSW DET portal is last century in both design and function. It is hard to navigate, search and access, let alone the NSW government recognising that all staff need access to fully networked laptops first. Selective IRM is vital, but to adopt a blanket policy on portals, especially DET’s where participants want to collaborate across systems, is learning folly.

Queensland, Victoria and WA DET, although not yet fully read/write, all have far more user friendly interfaces that at least look 21st century and are far easier to find eresources, share information and navigate.

I’m glad our regional Learning Systems recently launched a user friendly read/write page. Alas, I can’t share with all learners because its locked behind DET NSW’s walled garden, but that’s another pet peeve about sharing openly.