Important yes, but sorry to sound underwhelmed, it is only one step towards the learning revolution needed. A Pantene Moment if ever there was one.

Separating and recognising the enormity of the procurement, rollout and install is important. By and large contractual obligations have been met, well. As laconic Jack Gibson was wont to say, ”Played hard, done good” Big Tick, so far.

Now we have our little boxes of digi goodness, just exactly do we want? 

Despite what political leaders say, a 1:1 environment is far from revolutionary for learning. Unless we broach the next and far more problematical step.

Federal/State targets to improve learning via ICT’s a decade into the 21st century and some 30 years since ICT first appeared in school systems is welcomed. I question though, if it is such a big deal, why not earlier?

The techn0logy has long been available, its political where withall that’s been lacking.

As we are yet to hear to the contrary, lets also trust future government “digital revolution” funding is sustainable.

If it’s not, or if real expenditure is reduced as GFC debts are repaid, why have Rudd and Rees et al bothered?

Future edu digital policy should prioritise open source, and remove the current duplicity. We have Curls, BlogEd, CLi, Tale,

Our K-2 kids should not be made to endure a lengthy transition to digitisation as we enter the fourth decade of ICT’s in schools. It’s not new and we need to stop excusing those who think it is. 

For some, the soon to conclude 2009 rollout of 1000 plus laptops per week will be a time to reflect on any supply or technical issues. It has been a steep learning curve and, from afar, seemingly an effort all involved should be proud of.

2009 sowed the “21st century” learning seeds; L4L,CCP,wireless, commisioning, TSO’s, procurement, installations.  The DER blur has happened at a frantic state wide pace. 2010 will reap the learning crop, maybe, we trust, hope and wish.

For other technocrats, they’ll discuss high end ICT questions concerning software,virtual, online,F2F, hardware, open source, filters, Win7OS, BlogEd, Adobe CS4 or MS Office. Great, I just lost myself with that sentence.

 These experts, the providers, the framework decision makers, in this way maintain status quo control over those working within. By providing what they want, not what may be needed, results in a safe and predictable balance for systemic governance. It’s the way it has always been done, but I question if it’s correct with rapid devolution and accountability to nodes not hubs.

These too are valid discussions but often beyond the classroom teacher’s comprehension, scope or sequence. Probably also beyond our need to know.

Most of these discussions are beyond an individual’s ability to influence or change. I disagree vehemently with a minority of  L4L, ICT, CCP,IWB,filter,intranet,PD decisions but that is by definition systemic education. It matters not whether nodes disagree with the hub, the hub dominates, at present. But I question for how much longer?

You do as you’re told within what is provided (whole new post that one) We educate our DETNSW learners within that silo, albeit a rather massive one. I wonder why our learners have been served the nannified, safely sanitised, lite version of the full fat smorgasbord on offer to the rest of the world. It may not be apparent, yet, but our NSW  learners are at a distinct disadvantage when compared to best global practice, despite the infrastructure spend.

However, engaged students, collaborating, using appropriate tools and exploring new ways with ICT is certainly high on my 2010 personal learning expectation list. I’ll ask stage 5 teachers, especially, to think about the following;

As a classroom teacher of years 9 and 10, now with laptop equipped learners, what exactly do we want in 2010?   

How may our learning be improved ?

What can we do differently compared to 2009 that will result in learning improvements?

How might our netbooks make our learning more engaging, challenging, fun or productive?

I see wasted opportunities if we simply layer technology to do the same as before. Or worse, use IT sparingly for fear of mistakes or failures.

Learners need to consider carefully what it is they expect from or with their 1:1 boxes.

I trust the following questions will not gain dominance in political or administrative circles.

How will netbooks improve Schoool Certificate data ?

How will netbooks help rank schools?

How will government’s substantial financial investment be politically leveraged?

How will governments, current and future, evaluate their return on expenditure to either sustain, increase or decrease real dollar commitments to future digital learning? If they get no political bang for their buck, why would they continue?

Are our politicians and educrats expecting a learning panacea, a magical wand to add further value added data to 2010 School Certificate results?

A while back now I posted 4 essential questions for learning, especially within the context of web2.0 educational hype.  

I’m happy to report these questions remain, and probably always will.

However, what has changed in the preceeding 16 months is the addition of an important new question. 

Now that NSW year 9 DET students have been issued wireless netbooks and will use them daily throughout the School Certificate 2010, I’m interested in your answers to this newest question.

Well just exactly DO we want?

In a little over 12 months, our netbook equipped 2010 Year 10 students will be required to sit the same 5 standardised exams in Maths, English, Science, HSIE and ICT. 

Will netbooks improve the summative data? Does your school expect to see value added above the norm?

Quandry number 1.

Do staff pursue the olden golden goose of improving value added data and receive the summative ‘head pat hat tip’ in January 2011?

“Good work faculties, look at the school’s excellent data. Some real learning took place, the figures tell us”

Or do learners actually integrate the netbooks to change learning so it aligns with the digital world we now live in.

I suspect most faculties will find these conflicting demands challenging.

Unfortunatley the reality is this quandry will also provide convenient excuses for teachers to NOT integrate laptops. “We have a public exam on which school data is collated,  my teaching is assessed and these results posted on the new MySchool website.

Yet we also have shiny new toys they want us to learn with on the job?”

DETs own assessment support site states;

we need to transform the structure and delivery of  current assessment processes and consider the possibilities which the laptop program affords.

I wonder how quickly this may occur? What difference will/should netbooks make?

On the one hand teachers are being asked to “consider the assessment possibilities” and yet concurrently we are accountable for school data results using superceded standardised exams that no other State retains.

Yes a major quandry IF learning is to seriously become the core focus within DER.

Well just exactly DO we want?

My 15 & 16  year olds  will be offered DET NSW’s BlogEd, an apache blog platform within DET’s intranet bubble. I know why the decision to keep blogging in house was made but I still question the authenticity of future learning experiences. If we continue to exist in a cloister will learners ever be prepared for the real world?  

Well just exactly DO we want?

My Stage 5 compulsory attendees, now netbook equipped, will be told the School Certificate test matters (for state data collation), “put that away, we have real work today”. Who does the antiquated SC really matter for?

The School Certificate is not a pre-requisite to continue with their now compulsory “learning” attendance until age 17. These standarised tests, that every other state has abandoned, are today rarely used as qualification once higher certification is reached.

Well just exactly DO we want?

If the new National Curriculum does not integrate K-12 digital citizenship and embedd future Federal/state DER investment accountability, then really what are our newest, possibly one hit, shiny baubles good for? Hopefully not what Edwin Starr’s seminal song asks, What is it good for?

Well just exactly DO we want?

Talk about raising learning expectaions and setting the bar higher will remain just that. Leaders at all levels, including the classroom, need to consider and articulate their answers on this newest question.

Well what exactly do YOU want?

Now government largesse has landed, how will this change learning?

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.

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.

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.

• How do you currently assess your 21st century transformative learning?
• Should you be allowed to?
• Do you possess an impartial perspective to do so?
• Is what you do better learning? How? Show me the evidence.

Prove to those who ask, by applying web2.0/interactive/read/write/semantic tools in your lessons, that you can measure the improvements in learning outcomes.

Talk is cheap, conferences extolling web2.0 virtues expensive with often disconnected, agenda laden, key noters developing a dangerous novice base.

But I still want to see why I tell the best colleagues at my place why they need this? Do they? Prove it.

Where is the test, the assessment tool, the control class, the hard evidence that proves the argument that all this edrev being dumped in our laps is of improved learning worth?

Maybe the leaders doing the dumping just want an expeditious fix (or a convenient kicking post?) if the expected “transformative change” does not magically result. They are entitled to know why if it fails and more importantly why when it succeeds.

For my evidence I don’t want

• “warm fuzzy, teacher/student feel good statements”,
• nor nebulous “engagement, 21st century web2.0″ motherhood tosh 
• Don’t dare dish up improved retention statistics, or reduced suspension rates or less counsellor referrals
• let alone “oh the kids just like coming to my classes better”

Pleeease, no. It won’t cut the mustard if real change is to follow for the mainstream majority.

Not unless your rigourous, repeatable, reliable assessment evidence is directly attributable to a specific innovation and the assessment tool was built to do so from the get go. 

Why do I ask?

I don’t yet believe you if you say ICT, and more specifically web2.0, caused “transformative learning change”, thats why. Others are asking this too;

Teachers, administrators and policymakers have every right to demand evidence and to expect that calls for change be based on well-founded and supported arguments.

Sue Bennett, Karl Maton and Lisa Kervin.

I have great faith in expert teachers continuing to teach expertly using traditional methods for a while to come, a long time in fact. Good on them, even if it is not right; they comply and follow what they are told is “best learning”.

Of course what we teach is broken, but convincing a status quo ancient industry of high stakes testers is a future study learning societies are addressing now.  What BOS do is great, but it’s still wrong and not life long learning for the 21st century. It’s a pigeon holing exercise for tertiary entrance and summative stamping/comparing/ranking schools, it’s NOT about learning for 70 more years post schooling.

Concurrently, and more importantly to me, the sticklers, the gate keepers, the laggards, the untrained or unprepared also need to deblinker and just imagine there is a better way of learning. 

Are more kids just compliantly learning the best syllabi boxes from a broken 200 year old system?

Test, stamp, issue an education pass to the rest of your life and then the participants quickly forget that massively critical result for evermore. The HSC is just a stressful ticket, designed more for the bastions of data to justify their own existence, not the participants inflicted. Yeah like 412/500 still comes up a lot in my life, no, never has, never should, Why? It means nothing.

Are parents going to passively accept this for another generation? When I stop playing devil’s advocate, of course we can get more bang for our learning buck. We must.

Engagement in the reflective thought process we ask of our students, developing critical enquiry, to experiment, try new methods, not have all the answers immediately, devolve real control and ultimate responsibility to learners is essential if the expected changes are to materialise anytime before I retire. The mindset of many must change. Do not even mention technology, for that is not the real debate needed. The continuation of antiquated learning practices will be folly as millions of networked global learners emerge each year. This is the gap that may be difficult to redress. The only certainty stagnation will deliver is an education quagmire that’ll suck you under. Baby steps, having a go and letting go of the control syndrome will all help, but this innovation still needs to be rigourously assessed before the major gatekeepers give up their current, and pointless, testing regimes anytime soon.

However I still want empirical evidence from a properly conducted assessment before I get too excited for my valued colleagues and tell them to “get with it”. If DET supplies the assessments that we really need, of course teachers will change. They are actually very compliant when they see the learning purpose, or some just do as they are told. Either way, if assessments were to change, the emerging 21st Century learning debate would be a whole lot easier for all to accept.

Proof that innovators are not simply rose colouring the results, ‘you want it to be true therefore you’ll make it true’, skewed to a personal bias or chanting the mantra of panacean technology. Marc Prensky come on down, a key noter here, I hope his 2001 native/immigrant furphy is wisely updated by now.

If you already are an advanced, engaged, user of web2.0, a 21st century teacher I want to share your assessment evidence at my place. It will be listened to.

Prove to us how the following “21st century skills” (yuk jargon) have been significantly enhanced in your classroom and measured.

Same proviso, nothing nebulous, links to proven evidence please.

An easy task?, difficult for others? impossible for some? Therein lies a pressing issue that needs addressing in the broader edrev we need to be debating, assessment reform. 

Imagine this, sometime in the soon future I hope. We have;

• ubiquitous 1:1 tool boxes and high speed wireless connections
• the human learning skills, attitudinal wherewithal and expertise
• an agreed 21st century skill set 

but what’s next? That may well prove to be the easy reform.

How do you assess this “new” learning to ensure learning is rigourous with high expectations and improved outcomes?

If teachers keep teaching well with a broken “it”, while the above 7 skills are not meaningfully assessed, then technology should not be lauded as the cure all some see, or hope, it is. That is giving a box of wires way too much creedance.

We have a problem, and a need for a far braver education revolution. Not many seem ready to address the industry schools have slavishly and understandibly followed, summative high stakes testing.

Alternate voices are questioning this and feeding results to governments.

They are listening,  Krudd & Nrees. We hope.

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.:

REFLECTION ONE: How would you feel if our current “it” was actually the wrong thing for learning?

The “it” you pour your heart and sole into earnestly improving and refining and scoring outstanding results on? The flourishing growth industry of ”it”, the high stakes exams that you and your place are doing well on.

The “it” you are beholden to, the “it” you yourself are a successful product of, the “it” you get your charges great results in year after year for the formula is so refined you are deemed the school doer, the star summative doer? But you are now told “it” is wrong, or broken or simply not right? How would you feel?

By “it” I mean what we have been lead to believe is the measure of educational worth. Education we have had for the past 200 years. Of course here we are a decade into now and we are still striving to perfect our perfect 20th Century models of “it”, which itself was carried over from it’s 19th Century origins.

Fundamentally little has changed, except the rest of the world. 

What we know and do well is not disputed, we comply, very well in most cases for the “it” data assures us we are on track. The wrong track. The soon to be a massive head on stack track in fact.

We enjoy our feel good warm fuzzies, the Group Back Slaps as the agreeable institutional summative assessment data is published annually and trotted out as educational success.

“Oh that school/student/system/cohort is far superior to that one, the data says so”. 

Yes it IS, but only on the broken model we have. 

By all means accept the praise, repeat the formula, gain the ‘rep’ as the little school earner of ticks of goodness, but please don’t dwell on “it”. “It’s” not the right thing and “it” is not learning. In fact “it” is broken so badly the technicians at HQ are having trouble fixing “it”. 

Floundering in fact to find the means to keep 200 year old systems functioning when the rest of the world is whizzing by and leaving them for dead. That’s why the brave daily pioneers are needed, the jump in the deep end doers, to tinker, to experiment, to refine and to inspire. Trusting our leaders are listening, watching, learning and god forbid actually deeply engaging with some of the new ”it” themselves.

In 50 years, lets hope they are not just seen as latter day connectivists ala Siemens or worse latter latter day Deweys, for much of what they both say re learning per se is not revolutionary except maybe the digital applications but even that is evolutionary. Questions raised are the import, not answers offered.

What has effectively changed since Dewey’s day is it is now simply unavoidable for the mainstream to get on board the right education track. We know shift happens, we know billions of “new” learners have joined the global market and we know we must do better to stay competitively relevant.

Hence we have seen the recent misguided scramble of Rudd’s ”digital bucket of cash”, aka revolution, thrown at the “problem” for politicians are still hankering to prop up the antiquated “it” by sprinkling more baubles on top. This alone will not be the catalyst for expected learning change because these tools wont make Keats or Alegebraic logarithms or evolutionary theory any higher quality than current assessment allows.

ICT ubiquity, negligable price, rapid emergence of so called less developed countries and their ready access to level learning opportunities have caused some to realise lately we are being left behind. You then welcome our own random access digital learners who have informally and superficially known nothing else since birth. Many parts of society have engaged and are fast disappearing into the distance. Lets hope its not “slow down, education wants to get off.” It should be “lets do it and lead with learning in schools”.

Boffins will come by the rooms of early adopters and say “lets measure this rigourous innovation of yours properly, lets get us some authentic tools so we can record this, lets assess this fabulous quality learning so we can repeat, refine and share it”. Describe to me what you are doing that works well?

The boffins can then scurry off and show, demonstrate, prove to the laggard governments, still selling last centuries superceded ”it” product, that the bells and whistles latest model has legs and can be held accountable with repeatable measurable rigour. Show them the new ”it” works AND is also right. That’ll fix “it, the older.”

How well do current innovators assess these skills I wonder? What tools do they use?

Maybe they don’t yet for the assessment tools have not yet been invented?

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

When asked the serious question about why this new “it” is right, we can’t reply “we have a gut feeling”, ”come in, hear, see, feel the sounds of happy learners”, or worse some tenuous data correlations or other shallow motherhoods. The assessments must be rigourous, repeatable, relevant and right.

Don’t get me wrong. Teachers are 100% entitled to their feel good moments as we fleetingly bask in our classes outstanding data success in NAPLANs or SCs or HSC’s.

It is a fine punctuation mark for Day 1 PD. Inspire the crew to deliver more of the same. Take the data and enjoy “it” for we know nothing else. But that is not learning for life and it is not ultimately the right thing to do.

Discreet syllabi boxes, fill the empty vessal, stamp the product for quality control as it moves seamlessly along the conveyor belt of school at ages 5, 8, 11, 14 and 17 or thereabouts. Compile data, assess, test, compile some more, test again and extract the value added of the sausage. Then do it all again, adding more layers of “it” as “it” has been cheap, convenient and so so easy for politicians and the testing industry to justify their terms via “improvements” in learning (even if standards set are questionably low)

No wonder NSW Principals want to ditch at least one layer of antiquated crud, the School Certificate, now the NSW minimum leaving age has finally been raised to 17 with some flexibilty. They know we are drowning in old ”it”.

Our collective clueless political aparatchiks have parroted polly style ”More of the same, More of the same, More of the Same” for the last 40 years. “It” must be better because if we have more meaningless data and hard evidence of the leaking holes and the shining beacons we can cane those at fault. It’s easy, its cheap but its wrong.

Over the last 40 years expediency has thrown more and more of ”it” at the “problem” (for there must be one if “it” has needed changing?)

The irony is there are now few spots left to apply more “it”, so other solutions (kicking posts?) will be needed. We have reached “it” saturation, the incremantal top of the exponential scale and more are finally asking, Is this right?

Kids are assessed using the wrong tools, of the wrong skills, with the wrong curriculum, that causes the stresses, the anxiety, the desire to conform, to rank, to label, to put in a box and ultimately declare a winner.

Fine and dandy we need high quality outcomes, but lets broaden our base further for multiple relevant skills and literacies to be included on the ‘winners’ list, not just traditional, classic, 19th century subjects with some appeasing VOCed VET of TAFE tinkers tacked on.

Of course quality learning must be assessed, measurable, repeatable, accountable, far better than it currently is. What’s broken, or more correctly yet to be embedded, are the relevant assessment tools to record the look, feel & sound of what learners today actually need and do well.

Dare I utter the term doing us all a disservice, 21st century skills? They are not, they are skills learners have always needed, but now in our digital world they are the disciminators, the essential skills that will lead to effective engagement, productivity and contribution for their 60 plus years post school. Of course they need to be taught explicitly but we don’t yet seem to have the meaningful assessments. Build it and they will come.

Imagine this as an assessment tool. All meetings/decisions/lessons everywhere are captured, all archived, all shared, all open sourced. Just imagine that. Information overload to the max. Not captured to criticise but to collaborate. Embodiments of this exist, many of them in fact. The quality floats, sticks and goes viral. Consumers engage, join the conversation, remix, favouritise, rank, cull, delete, link, embedd, mash up and view. Imagine if that could be done with your unit on Shakespeare?

Could your filters cope? Folksonomy, deep tagging, RSS and I know my PLN will help sort the noise from the conversation. Kids do this too, very well. They get what they want from their social networks for many already have well established PLN’s of their own. That is not innovative or cutting edge to them, that is just the way it is.

They join in the conversations, many, varied, AWAT, 24/7 and seem to cope, superficially at least. Our face to face mentoring role IS therefore becoming more critical, to guide their rudimentary, dangerous or inefficient skills and enhance them so they sustain higher order thinking and deep learning. I wonder how many mentors could?

Along the way we observe, capture, share, record, formatively assess, guide, correct, edit and mentor the group collaborations without concurrently having to teach to a high stakes external data frenzy, pointless exam to jump some hoops and tick some boxes. That is untenable and unsustainable. You can’t have both.

That assessment gig is actually NOT at all hard to imagine. The technical side is there, has been for yonks. That is how the rest of the world has operated in business, in journalism, in music, in social networking, in marketing, in finance, in travel, in food, in faith, in life, but NOT formal learning within 19th century little boxes called schools. 

The former is the world our students inhabit away from school and yet the 13 years of school “it” we dish up is an anathema, anachronistic and wrong.

Who would be more confronted by this brave new open learning? The vessals or the fillers? Neither is my guess. They both have much to gain and little to lose.

Kids live it now, teachers being teachers adapt, but the serious stumbling stymie may well be the administrator’s & leaders whose meetings/decisions/reasoning would also be openly on the table. 

They too would be captured, shared and assessed. Fascinating open democracy ala Obama. We shall see if they walk the walk. See if they are brave enough to bring in the new transparency demanded by this learning. Reminds me of some French Crusties who resisted meaningful change, heads rolled, ended up as a basket case.

Radical? Maybe for some, but the real life long learners2.0 will be the floating cream and the residual curds and whey, relying on “it1.0″, will be on the nose, left on the shelf and so past its use by date it will be discarded as unmerchantable.

We shall see how long “it2.0″ takes to not only be mainstream but to also be the right thing to do.

credit Ben Hasic & Happy Devil Cartoons

Ok, I’ll admit it, I have more than a passing interest in what the 200,000 compact learning devices (CLDs)our schools will receive in April may look like. Most DET teachers reading this will too.

Australian IT reported yesterday that “the department’s proposed learning device, which can be likened to a ruggedised netbook, is the first of its kind in Australia and one of the more unusual hardware specifications globally“.

Observations from DETs Chief Information Officer Stephen Wilson also caught my eye.

We intend to make the devices available to other schools for other purposes, so watch that space. Any vendor looking at this is going to be looking at a very large market because other states are very interested in what’s going on in NSW“.

More questions than answers are raised and It will be interesting to see;

1. what a “ruggedised $500 CLD” actually looks like, considering it may be a hybrid design blending netbook, laptop and notebook features. We trust the tech boffins, doing the top secret cull this week from 21 tender submissions to 5, will have their hands on it.
2. if the tight tender to implementation timeline can be met efficiently, for all stakeholders, not just political expediency of being seen to ’rush the shiny baubles out’. and
3. will other markets & DETs, global and local, really want them too? We trust our leaders that the CLD’s will be that good, so other’s should flock to order.

Educational innovation is measured by effectiveness of the changes in learning. Measures are in place to rigourously assess the transformative 21st century learning these devices will bring, aren’t they? Well we trust they are.

This simple nuts and bolts phase, despite political chest beating to the contrary, is the easy phase, its only a box of wires, the “21st century toolbox” as Deputy PM Gillard and PM Rudd muttered on DER launch.

What really matters for learners are the 571 state wide school plans to ensure teachers of year 9 to 12 students use the CLD’s as transformative learning devices, far better than the last 20 years of school PC use, that is. We trust these plans are in place and deeply understood before April.

The jury is still out on this last point but we do trust ourselves to deliver the expected learning changes, this time, don’t we?

The governments have provided the tools, again, now it’s up to us, again, or else, again! Dripping with it, yes, again. I’m worried, again. Simplistic motherhood statements and boxes of wires do not a revolution make.

Those who have taught in schools on a full time basis for an extended period of time have seen much of this hype before, in fact since the first PC lobbed into our schools in the mid 1980’s. It’s still NOT new learning, CLD’s are just the latest embodiment. Wireless flexible connectivity and 4 year CLD student ‘ownership’ have more potential, for those facets reflect 21st century more than the device themselves.

I hope CLD’s don’t become more expensive portable pencils, more technology sprinkled on top.

We all want better outcomes for learners, how we best achieve that is far from decided. But I certainly trust this latest DET NSW roll out of CLD’s will help deliver them, whatever it is we end up deciding on and believing to be the 21st century direction we need to have. You can’t choose the best mode of transport when you don’t yet know the destination.

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.