Active student voice, open, global, tech requirements even I could muster from home and learner centred.

Stephen Heppell does stuff, good real stuff, for learning. 

Learnover is a case in point. This was the recent trial.

He makes me think “gee that was a simple idea with plenty of substance”. I like that.

This 24 hour, 48 school, global twitcam hookup will allow kids 30 minutes to ask, answer, see and record the diversity of learning from the 4 dozen participating schools. Cool idea? Yep, absolutely.

#Learnover is a test, it promises to be slighty messy and a fancy video conference facility may add more glitz and gloss.

But you know what?

This is not even remotely about the technology. 

Learnover is about kids sharing the place they spend a quarter of each day.

Kids (hopefully) making independent decisions about what excites, motivates, thrills and makes them feel proud in THEIR schools. Hands off teachers and admin. It’s not the local polly visiting, this time. Kids will get the global show and tell mojo happening, so guide them only seniors, don’t lock it up with your control stamp. 

Unfortunately, at our place we’ll get to watch the replayed recorded version, sorry kids.

Another live, interactive, social media, simple, rich, engaging, tech easy learning opportunity passes us by.

The ”Appropriate applications, services and information” that is DET intranet won’t allow such things as #Learnover2010, into our classrooms, yet. Times they are a changin’, just not in some schools at a sufficiently appropriate pace.

If  this opportunity is not already booked out, contact Mission Control at heppell.net.

Learnover2010 says you may want to rehearse your tour, although perhaps not quite like this one. Love it.

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.

1. be kept up to date
2. save time whilst looking for quality resources
3. learn from a whole world of educators, literally
4. have fun
5. be challenged in your thoughts
6. ask for help, guidance or suggestions
7. vent, rant and argue (140 limit! yee ha)
8. have interesting links delivered to you
9. break free from the educational echo chamber AND
10. find out how others teach and learn

then twitter is the application for you.

After a tentative tweeting start, I am now seeing the enormous quality and professional value of twitter.

Thanks tweetees, you know who you are, so does everyone else now!

I’m always up for a bit of irreverency so after eduguru and helper to the hoards Sue Waters tagged me for next in, whilst on holidays no less, well who was I to disappoint?

Here are my ‘7 things you really don’t need to know about me.’

1.  Adora Rum Truffles are ace numero uno. Yummy in the extreme, shelf life = minimal.
2. My trusty steed is a 05Dakar650, my ADV nickname is FSOD an Adora prize awaits the 1st codebreaker
3. Luceat Lux Vestra was my high school motto. Wish they had of practiced what they preached.
4. VH1971 770 4 speed 265ci sky blue Valiant Charger was my BEST car ever owned. Oh sweet hemi + 600 Holley music.
5. 2007 ANU award was the best teaching recognition ever, scary but good. Thanks Ben. (Your ‘esky’ aka the museum, awaits a grand opening in 2009, It’s where all the cool history stuff goes my students tell me).
6. Spent 7 years as an APC driver with 12/16th HRL B Squadron, Chauvel Depot Muswellbrook. Loved every minute of it.
7. A single malt tour of the British Isles finest distilleries is a planned retirement indulgence. Thank my sister for dreaming that one up. 

 I’ll pass the meme baton on ’7 things you really don’t need to know about me’ to

1 Darcy Moore

2 John Larkin

3 Graham Wegner

4 Anne Mirtschin

5 Elaine Talbert

6 Chris Betcher

7 Jess McCulloch

Have fun, tag 7 more, share 7 things and see if this meme survives unmutated.

Networking sites such as MySpace and changes in the way we socialise. The problem is: teachers, like many adults, don’t “get it”. Danah Boyd says educators need to consider the role social networking sites play in teens’ lives and discuss online practices.

Boyd says educators should not condemn these sites, but invite debate about issues involving them.
“There’s a lot to be said about educating people, [instead of] telling them the rules, to understand how the decisions they make in these spaces will affect their lives.”

Choice theory, reality therapy revisited.

Just trying to make sense of why PLE (or PLN’s) diagrams are a useful concept for learners to understand. Tim’s ponderings got me thinking about something new to me. I think Scott Leslie summarised it best

A PLE is clearly not just a set of drawings, but the act of producing such a drawing, such a conceptualization, is an incredibly valuable one… for any learner, regardless of whether they conceive of it as a “PLE” or not. Knowing how you learn, and how you conceive of the structures and relationships that support your learning, is an important step to becoming a master learner.

Again as a total non techy person, just trying to learn something new, the shirt speaks sense  “PLE is People” – I like it.

above image “Alec Couros, PhD Thesis illustration, the Networked Teacher ” A PLE that reflects my current one.

“Young people are more likely to have learnt their social networking skills from their friends or classmates than from any formal instruction or support from adults.

The report flags up the need for greater support for teachers and lecturers. As social networking spills over into the classroom, with students using sites to collaborate on homework projects or discuss lessons, they can provide many opportunities. But with that comes a need for clear guidance on use. The report offers some excellent definitions of digital social networking services, explores the different types of sites – from content-sharing and profile-based, to virtual environments and micro-blogging services – and provides a useful overview of how young people use them. It gives ideas and examples of how social networking services can be put to imaginative and effective use for the benefit of schools, teachers and learners.”