Pleased to read in todays ZDNet feed that Federal Ministers Stephen Conroy and Lindsay Tanner have dipped their toes into the blogosphere. Not all are happy however and their first somewhat awkward blog does reek of ‘try hardness’.

If I was more optimistic about their efforts, I would say it is heartening indeed that ‘good cop’ Tanner’s welcome post says;

instead of simply copying overseas models we are keen to gather as much evidence as we possibly can about how Australians want to engage online.

Gathering evidence is one thing but listening and learning from the feedback will be a whole new government ballpark.

Lets hope governments aren’t dishing up ’same old same old’ rhetoric in slightly new clothes, the voices are strong, and on the clean feed issue, universally opposed.

We are also genuine about wanting to use online consultation to improve government-citizen relationships around public policy. We want real outcomes from online consultation…

The potential “new openess” and permanent digital record of online democracy will be interesting to watch unfold. A pity the government currently has a heavy handed approach, draconian springs readily to mind.

In its first 3 days Tanner’s welcome post garnered 289 comments, the vast majority, if not all, strongly opposed the clean feed proposal.

Please add your voice or sign GetUp’s petition below if this issue also concerns you.

Bring on the Julia Gillard Education blog and I’m sure the informed edublogosphere will welcome the ripple effect with their constructive feedback. 

Learners and systems starting from flat fields, often LDC’s, are not hindered by centuries of factory education models, many did not have one.  These systems are not burdened by the baggage of history or “thats how we always did it” attitudes or meaningless “one size little boxes tests scores are king” mantras to hold them back. They do not have to have the seemingly circuitous arguments many more developed systems are still currently wasting time on. It really is well past the time to dive in the deep end.

As ubiquitious technology ‘allows the fish to not see the water’ emerging education systems or those able to address the new dynamic will exponentially prosper and eliminate existing achievement gaps, maybe not in a the immediate short term but certainly more rapidly than at any other stage in history.

Conversely, where entrenched opinions of supposed best edupractice are rife, misguided or antiquated we face stagnation and unacceptable lag times. Who’ll be catching up? we all know the answer. Thats why governments and educational deliverers, particularly large public systems at all levels, must get with it, and do so far more rapidly. I’m optimistic Kev07 federalism has a handle on this, but do other stakeholders?

Openness, no excessive clean feeds, no DET portals or walled gardens, no us and them, no impediments to learning, ubiquitious technology, genuine world wide conversational blogging, here’s hoping it happens before I retire.

I’m not holding my breathe after this first clumsy blog attempt, but hey it’s a baby step start and that’s always encouraging.

photo credit: NSP at flickr cc license

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

Poppy Masselos of Courier Mail Education summarises the Joel Klein story with comprehensive links highlighting his opacity. Klein is the controversial NY Schools Chancellor who has already angered countless Big Apple “education consumers” and Rudd/Gillard seem fixated on emulating his errors. Catch Klein’s National Press Club talk today on ABC TV and make up your own mind.

Chris Bonner’s, author of The Stupid Country  and Future Education Forum, discusses these issues further and with far greater clarity than I am able to elicit whilst I guffaw at Gillard’s naive pandering to failing OS eduexperiments (and ex Australians, which, when he’s finished Boyering us to tears, I’ll comment further)

Australians can and should be leading the educational world and learning from the countries that are setting the pace. In no way are Australian schools in dire straights, as some schools of our two closest allies, Septopia and MC, are. So why import when we should be exporting? Why pander when we can lead? Why be colonial when we could be unique?

Why is Gillard strongly advocating the NYC model without fully considering others ? Easy to see why Klein’s domestic opponents ask reasonable questions that so far remain unanswered. Locally SOS continues the theme by asking “where is the verified, independent, educational improvement evidence, other than Klein’s questionable and abundant own?”

Easy, cheap and lazy springs to mind, all great qualities of those who fundamentally just don’t get it, 21st century education that is. Play catch up if you must Julia, but the NY model is last centuries solution for this centuries learners. The world has moved on, rapidly, and governments just don’t seem to want to know if it costs more than the cheapest solution. (edit5/12: NMC ANZ Horizon Report just released, 198 dowloads as of 5th Dec, get amongst it, good future stuff here, will post more later)

Little boxes, raw stats and testing to the test are so passe, not to mention damaging to learning, I hope the coal facers stop laughing long enough to get to work today.

picture: Rubenstein 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.

The proposal has outraged long standing e-business consultant and civil rights advocate, Roger Clarke. 

“What credibility can a government organisation and educational bureaucracy have with the people they’re trying to communicate with when the students, through all of their own devices and through friend’s devices, have access to the world,”

Stephen Wilson DET CIO, rightly argues for theft minimisation, but isn’t DET NSW’s solution enforcing a crushing sledgehammer approach when a gently persuasive ball peen would do? Overkill? absolutely.

It’s very noble that DET NSW doesn’t want to flood the pub black market with Rudd’s edrev hand me downs, but to nobble poor old pricepoint laptop so it is useless to all who may desire it, borders on learning terrorism. Big Brother is still alive and well in DET land.

This issue highlights another reason why explicitly teaching digital citizenship is far more important than externally imposed filters, which only ”protect” DET, not the student anyway. They’ll resume unrestricted browsing on their personal mdevices in their own time anyway.

If the political squabbling ceases and the laptop promise is eventually delivered, my concern is what will NSW’s 21st century connected learners actually be able to achieve with them? Looks like notepad is safe.

Is this weeks NSW DET announcement regarding the configuration of Rudd’s laptops an example of censorship, filtering, common sense or prudency? I dare say we’ll be mlearning like this or this before students even receive the Ruddy laptops anyway. What do you think?

All students reflect as part of our college Reflection, Organisation And Reading programs. ROAR not only involves using a learning log (diary) to plan, record homework and organise assessments, it also encourages students to consciously record how they best learn. With fine tuning and more realistic goals, I think ROAR, a 4 year old program, will improve further in 2009.

My question however is, how do staff reflect on their profession? I assume they do, I’m just not sure how. Maybe we could introduce a staff learning log and model this reflective practice?                                                           

Jeff Cobb’s thought provoking question What have I learned at work? on Mission to Learn keeps resonating. I especially like these questions

Does what I am doing right now (i.e., having a conversation, participating in a meeting, completing a routine task, etc.) increase my knowledge or skill level in any significant way? How?

What might turn this activity into more of a learning experience? What do I need to do to make that happen? What could my employer do?

What could I add into my activities for today that would provide for a learning experience?

What could I take out of my activities that does not contribute to learning and would not really be missed?

An interesting set of questions which I have answered sporadically since April. Some answers alarmed me. Talk about “stuck on the wheel” and in the massive “same old same old rut.” I needed to change, hence the toe dipping web2.0 experiment before me.

I see future positives, but still question the change rate of the massive edubureaucracy I sometimes feel stuck in. It is responsive, but at a glacial pace. DET NSW really needs a dose of Usain’s speed, to gain  momentum for the hurdles ahead. 

In“Leading A Digital School” , Mal Lee, said,

Only when the vast majority of Australia’s teachers are using the appropriate digital tools as a normal part of their everyday teaching, and are provided all the requisite development and support from the school and system leaders can Australian education begin to assist enhanced national productivity

The key words, in red, need to have bipartisan, enequivical political support across all tiers of government if Australia as a nation is to be fair dinkum about advancing 21st century learning in schools.

In amongst the questionable tangents of the blogeratti there is a growing alignment of dedicated learning professionals striving to  deblinker administrators, policy makers and governments. Those that do not listen, change and innovate do so at their systems, and learners, peril and decline. 

I’ll leave the last word for Jeff as he says it so well;

I’d go so far as to suggest that:

1. Individuals who become conscious of their learning at work and take charge of their learning at work will be by far the most successful in today’s economy.
2. The primary focus of learning professionals should be helping individuals become conscious of their learning and take charge of it.

…if you undertake the exercise above and discover that you really are not learning much on the job, it may be time to look for a better job. The second is that, if you are counting on your employer to understand the new dynamics of workplace learning and help you out, you may be waiting quite a while.

Maralyn Parker’s education blog in the Daily Telegraph makes for interesting reading, sometimes. 

I certainly don’t agree with all that is published but the thought provoking nature of the posts and comments gives the reader another insight.

This is however one observation on Marilyn’s profile that I do believe in passionately.

Only 2 per cent of the nation’s private schools are audited but they were given over $30 billion in the last federal budget- no questions asked. In no other industry in no other part of the world where public funds are involved would this be acceptable. If you read about it it happening anywhere else you would assume it was a junta rorting public coffers to benefit its own children. Perhaps that is what is happening in Australia – it certainly feels like it.

I also responded to Tomaz’s recent cathartic post, with a more fullsome explanation of my views on this issue. Gillard also wants all schools to fully disclose their income streams.

Maralyn also blogged recently about

• NAPLAN results, (yawn, more pointless political testing being passed off as meaningful learning, look for Greg Whitby’s comment within this article)
• When it comes to spending on education – Average or Below Average – that’s us. Primary school funding well below OECD averages.
• Is seven a lucky number? Verity Firth, see if she can stop the rot. Someone has to.
• Stop-gap does not Measure up. Teaching should not be seen as a charitable act.
• Don’t Bring Your Bad Manners to School What do you think of the list? Are you a teacher who is fed up?

Please share your thoughts on Maralyn’s blog and add to the education debate.

image at flickr by mstofan

How do 2200 schools move forward together in the digital age ? Mammoth task.

How is contructivism or heutogogy or put simply, teachers rethinking how they teach made a priority? Quality teachers will change, as they have always changed. But this time, it’s a biggy. I still enjoy re-reading the TWAIN debate that asks learners to think about time, ability, new philosophers and the whats in it? question. I can see so much of that where I work.

Is there a political guarantee that the appropriate support from DET and governments is there, long term? I still question IF a big enough and ongoing Fed/state commitment has been made to this “digital education revolution”, but it is a start, albeit in my opinion a far too small one, especially in terms of PD support.

There are pioneer digital learners throughout the world who have been doing fantastic things in schools for a long time now.  Talent, goodwill, motivation and most importantly extensive support from their organisations is why they have been successful in implementing real change. Budgets are always limited so priorities towards technology have obviously been made.

Our public education state wide challenge, as more NSW DET schools receive laptops and connected classrooms, and we can only hope, QUALITY professional development support, will be for each teacher to reflect on, and change where neccessary, their own QTL in the classroom.

As more learners use web2.0 tools, like blogs, to develop personal learning networks, they will make connections with other like minded learners, pedagogies will easily change, all our 21st century students will have enriched, relevant learning and Quality Teaching and Learning for all students in all DET schools will result.

Watched any good fairy stories lately? This is what will happen in DET NSW Utopian Central School. The Big Dreamers are great and I support them, but NSW society has to hold our governments more accountable to deliver the realistic budgets to actually turn Utopian Central School into real schools.

It has happened in smaller, properly funded, more flexible learning organisations not hamstrung by bureaucracy or sheer size, but for a massive public system such as DET to move forward will be mind blowing.

The challenges NSW DET schools face will escalate IF governments do not address the key ingredient to success in the next 3 years, quality fully resourced professional development. Time, money, resources are all mentioned.

As I sit here engaged in PD on a Sunday as there is little time at school in my professional day, I would like to think the work/home balance is kept in context. I’m doing this because I’m interested, not because I’m good at it. No chance at work, not enough time.

If my school does not ‘get it’ or my department of education or my state/federal government do not provide funding and quality support for the face to face classroom teacher to change pedagogies, then why would they change? Many teachers I know are asking these questions now. 

This is where the real NSW DET quandry arises. To those not ignoring DET schools on a daily basis these are the real issues. I hear many of the following legitimate concerns articulalted far better than I’m doing right now.

We still wont have anywhere near enough computers post laptop roll out, our school will have at best 3 IWB’s in 3 years, we have an insufficient budget to establish a wireless network, we currently have unreliable or limited access to computers/ICT and will continue to have this post roll out. Why should I change and integrate more ICT is what teachers are saying. I disagree, but variety is the spice of….

Other more hard hitting questions include.

Why can’t our kids use a toilet that works at a school when “they” want us to embrace underfunded technology implementation?

Why does my decrepit demountable classroom leak, is too hot/cold and they want me to be an expert IWB teacher within 3 years?

If I can’t have reliable and regular access to ICT, a genuine wireless one to one network, an on site accessible technician for when it goes pear shaped, quality PD that is point of need then why should I commit? Private schools have this, why cant we? The government has not really committed long term to digital change in schools, they just want to win the next election.

All of these concerns are raised by DET teachers on a daily basis. Who is listening? The list goes on.

Why is school xyz in such a perilous state of disrepair, overcrowded, under staffed or staffed by untrained subject specialists or does not have enough specialist teaching spaces in even relatively new schools and yet ”they” want us to spend our time changing to something that has been unreliable to this point?

It is a two way street for many DET teachers and I hope the big end of town is listening, hey Maurice and whoever this months State Education Minister is?

I embrace the digital changes and will do so in my classroom when I can, but I can see why many may not.

We believe that there is nothing more valuable you can do for your nation than go into teaching, Julia Gillard Deputy Prime Minister July 1st 2008 

I often wonder why teaching is not seen as a more valuable profession, especially as Gillard states by the ” ‘best and brightest’ of university graduates.”

We have known this for a long time,

Australia faces a looming teacher shortage, with half the profession approaching retirement within the next 10 years.

but other than past and current government platitudes, what action has been taken to actually rectify this “looming shortage”? and inadequate staffing?

As proud as I am of twenty plus years of service to public education, with another 20 still to come, I almost feel lost promoting careers in NSW DET public schools to young people who ask me about the profession. I never say this of course, but I still feel it. Why?

I dont think society values public education like it once did. Good teachers seem undervalued, in far more than just monetary terms.

Governments are quick to abrogate their responsiblity to Public Education because its expedient. Police and ambulance are two of the last frontiers of NSW public utilities that are left to “sell off”. Currently its harder for private industry to profit in those two political minefields, but private “economic rationalist” arguments will eventually pursuade future governments to change policy. If profit is on the offing and politicians need a warchest top up, it’ll be sell, sell, sell. ”It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.”

Public funding for hospitals and schools, nurses and teachers, have in real terms been on the economic decline since the 1970’s in NSW. As more and more is handed over to the largly unaccountable private sectors, it disturbs me more supporters of public don’t cry out “why?” or “stop”. Maybe we have reached that point now with electricity. 

I’m certainly not anti private, just pro accountability and transparency as increasing budgets of public money gets handed over. Just look at the current political brawl over electricity, do you think it won’t eventually happen with other as yet untouched public services?

With the constant bickering between a multitude of so called representative groups, seemingly ongoing and circuitious debate over public funding transparency (getting funding right might be a good start) edubeaurocrats justifying their existence and opining “cause its what we do”, pointless 19th and 20th century “benchmark” tests, that in no way test 21st century digital literacies, constant change with the latest and greatest “edugimmicks” and assorted other platitudes, not least of which is adequate public funding for public education, then it’s no wonder I feel despondent about outsiders who constantly reinvent the wheel of education fortune, offer old skool solutions and mess with effective learning in the classroom. 

Maybe that’s why I feel uncomfortable promoting something I see as in decline, under attack or at least mighty mixed up.

This brings me back to why I’m excited about the digital revolution, not only in education but more widely in society. The speed of the future will marginalise slothful governments and others who “don’t play nicely, or smartly in the digital mud pit”.

Excessive layers of control, especially governments that are out of touch, hey JWH etal, will themselves become rapidly irrelevant and hopefully to some degree redundant as more people blog, ask questions, empower themselves and say enough is enough.

Futuristic yes, but I can see it happening more quickly than monolithic organisations may want to admit. We live in exponential times and shift happens. Why do you think China controls their net so tightly? They realise the power it unleashes on and for people, Getup and Get with it.

I see web2.0 learning as a way for learners to move forward at a faster more enjoyable pace and leave the political agendarists to fight their boring, repetitive and ugly fights elsewhere. Motherhood statements about “kids being central” are often trotted out by Politicians grasping at straws.

Of course learning in schools should be about learners, der, an absolute no brainer comment but one so often repeated. I can’t wait until learners in schools have moved so rapidly foward that they set and control the agenda. Pollies won’t wont know which way the bus went.

Non learning will result, and worse,  as more active digital brains ”power down” to attend school’s that don’t change in the future, school education will disenfranchise more than it empowers. Many adolescent learners engage in far more enriched learning away from 9to3dom now. Often the first thing learners are told is to “unplug and disconnect because we’ve got some serious school learning to do now.” (that will prepare you for a meaningless test for a job that is rooted in 19thC literacies and wont prepare you for 2020 let alone 2060)

Another micro level issue in our much touted “web2.0 digital revolution world of learning”, at least in NSW Public schools, is the strictly controlled DET filtered web environment that blocks educational multi media, blogs and wikis. Oxymoron or paradox? I’m not sure which it is. But I do know its counter intuitive and frustrating.

Web2.0 in NSW DET schools is NOT open apps, it is therefore not the “real web2.0″ world that learners access at home. It is NOT (yet) giving my Year 7 learners the access, speed or tools they need for a successful rest of life future in 2013 and beyond.

I’m convinced schools are heading there but at what pace and with what real commitment if 30% of our change engineers are retiring within 10 years? Maybe its time to allow the digital native generation to dictate the technology, and us old cronies will just administer the appropriate heutagogy?

The challenge for those footing the bills and making the big end of town decisons then, is to increase the pace of real digital integration and speed up the monolithic departments that hinder meaningful improvements to learning. Developing countries are doing it very well and very fast, why can’t Australia?  

Those learning places currently teaching their kids digital citizenship, critical web analysis, net safety and responsibility, use of open apps and digital mobile delivery with constructivism or similar pedagogy will succeed.

Those that don’t change quickly will be on the constant treadmill of playing “perpetual catch up” or worse become “schools of last resort”. Parents and kids will soon see through anything less and vote with their feet.

Guess which learning environments in the next decade the ” ‘best and brightest’ of university graduates” who are digital experts will want to teach in? A no brainer I know.

Future teachers in the next decade will gravitate back to the places of learning where they felt valued, were taught using 21st century methods and where they used real open apps webplus4.0 digital skills.

I sure hope some of that happens in Public schools.

Photo Credits: Future teacher Slice, Faceless Bureaucrats dougsamu, dont suspect a friend report him zyphichore. all under creative commons

Maralyn Parker, education writer for the Daily Telegraph reported on a major issue facing Public Education, adequate and/or equitable funding. 

Some of the best minds among public school supporters met in the NSW State Library on Saturday for their own 2020 Education Summit. Its sole purpose was to discuss how to fight the growing divide between Australia’s public and private schools. …. if all schools were staffed as generously as publicly funded Montessori and Steiner and independent schools another 40,000 teachers would be needed right now.

 

Maralyn Parker Profile

Only 2 per cent of the nation’s private schools are audited but they were given over $30 billion in the last federal budget- no questions asked. In no other industry in no other part of the world where public funds are involved would this be acceptable. If you read about it it happening anywhere else you would assume it was a junta rorting public coffers to benefit its own children. Perhaps that is what is happening in Australia – it certainly feels like it.

In another recent article Maralyn highlights the great divide over education priorities and funding.

30th June Daily Telegraph
The threat is real enough for advisers to Federal treasurer Wayne Swan to suggest a secret deal with NSW

But expect the COAG meeting on Thursday to have some fiery clashes. And so much for the new federalism putting an end to “the blame game” .

The reality is NSW government schools do not have classrooms with the proper air conditioning and wiring to house the computers.  They do not have sufficient in-school technical support (there should be full-time technicians employed in every school) nor widely available professional development for their teachers on how to use the computers and they cannot afford the insurance to insure them.

In fact most NSW schools have classrooms that are demountable and pose a security problem or many are so old they are too small to fit in a computer for every child.

It is time for the federal government to provide funding to government schools to a level where they can educate their children to a 21st century standard.

Australia is in the middle of a resources boom where we have untold wealth sitting in federal government coffers ( while some states, NSW included, miss out) . We should be using this unique time to invest in our most precious resource – Australian school children.

Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have to address the very real poverty of public schools in NSW.

I hope Michael Costa’s threat is a serious one. NSW is in dire need of a special catch-up state school funding deal.