Via Twitter thanks to @oxleyj I viewed this clip and of course my mind started racing. What if…?
Some ideas for possible use in the classroom filling my head and excitement building. Just take for example a book review by a 5th Grader. Little Johnny out the front presenting his book review complete with trailers for the upcoming movie, interview with the author and opinions of the book by some children from different parts of the world. He can do all of this now via Google but it would be made a good deal easier by accessing the extra information embedded in the book right at his fingertips. A glossary could take on a whole new meaning, illustrations would become interactive and so on. Of course, we’d have to do a whole lot more critical literacy then, which is a particular passion of mine. Yes, yes let me at it!
But I find that when my thought process gets past the actual exciting “lessons” I’m imagining and onto thinking about ethics I start to think up some other “What ifs?”
What if … students’ profiles were embedded? Who would/could put it there?
What if … students were in charge of updating their own profile – self assessment and thus designing their own learning? Education as we know it now would really (no really) have to change.
What if … all Government departments wanted a piece of this? Justice department – would criminal offences be embedded? Health Department … portable medical records? Customs … passports and visas? Tax department …
While reading Marc Prensky’s (2001) article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” I recognised myself along a continua of Digital Immigrant, if there is such a thing. Maybe we need to coin a new phrase for those of us who are quite a way along the digital journey.
I laugh at my 15 and 17 year olds who call me “Nerd Mum” and who get annoyed at me when I offer them a smorgasbord of websites, web 2.0 tools and suggest ways for them to tackle their school work with new or emerging technologies that I find interesting and that I would love to see them use and explore. Not that they don’t use and appreciate many digital tools but they are not nearly as interested or immersed as I am. They both think it is tragic that I love my iPhone and that I espouse the benefits of a personal learning network through social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook and that I am as addicted to YouTube as they are. After a few Tweets to organise a meeting recently, one daughter asked, “Why don’t you just call like other Mums?” I recently completed some Professional Development online in a gaming environment via Skype conferencing with other teachers. To my daughters this was the ultimate in “nerdiness”.
So, a new name for “nerdy middle-agers” or maybe as a Digital Immigrant I need to apply for citizenship?
This week looking through CQU Managing eLearning course and the concepts and issues that I will use to help to build knowledge around for preservice teachers. Haven’t come across this particular model before but others like it. According to Dale’s Cone http://www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/howdoes.htm I would rate the following professional development I have undertaken over the past 18 months as:
Key to Literacy – 5 day compulsory Literacy training (2)
Quest Atlantis – online training (9)
Facilitator Training – 2 days LIC (3)
Digital Storytelling (9)
AUSLAN (9)
Pedagogical Licence Training and workshops (8)
Aspiring Leaders (7)
Digital Pedagogy Master Classes (9)
A calculation can be made according to Dale’s Cone and the Learning Pyramid by adding the scores I made and dividing the number of learning experiences. I get an average of 7.
I’ve been rather fortunate to have participated in some highly effectively professional development where responsibility was placed on participants to interact, discuss, practise, produce and reflect to enable learning.
Two recent Professional Development events were most disappointing and perhaps that was because I had been involved in such highly effective learning before and was able to compare these experiences to ones which were engaging and effective.I felt myself sitting in a “Sea of Blah” and no matter how interesting the content was, one can only sit and listen for so long.Even more disappointing was the fact that one of the professional development sessions was about facilitating adult learning.
If nothing else, it is a good reminder about reflecting on my own practise and thinking about what I plan and implement for my own learners.
What does a true digital pedagogical teaching/learning environ look like?
This may be quite the fantasy genre. That’s a bit of a cynical statement I know, but I guess some weeks you feel a bit bogged down in red tape, limitations, blockages and blah blah. Maybe I will need to revisit this idea a few times, so I will call this one “Part One”.
Feeling more positive this week and thinking about the possibilities. I think that a true digital pedagogial teaching/learning environ would firstly have more than one teacher or learning manager. So I’m thinking at least a double teaching space and perhaps even two double teaching spaces with four or five teachers. There will be lots of learning areas that are shared rather than “this is my desk and tidy tray” and of course lots of digital toys to enhance learning. Digital toys would mean items such as cameras, iPods, Mp3 players, Web 2.0 tools, scanners, online learning/working spaces and … how long is a piece of string?
Children will work in collaborative groups to solve real problems and present their findings in authentic settings. The members of groups will change over the course of a year or two depending on interests, needs and problems to solve. Regular meetings by groups with a teacher/facilitator will guide teacher planning to ensure that all skills required by groups to complete tasks to a high standard are taught when needed and of course, in context. Facilitator/Teachers would also recognise the skills of learners in the learning environment and send them to other groups in a consultant role to coach and peer tutor.
It would be great to see a move away from competition by individuals to competition by collaborative groups towards a common goal and a shared celebration of a job well done.
I have no doubt that for the most part, this is happening in many classrooms but there are so many hoops to jump through and tests to take that precious time for authentic learning is eaten up. And what would parents think if children were choosing what they needed/wanted to learn and the traditional ideal of what ’school’ should look like didn’t match their picture? We really need to have admin on our side to help the cause.
Not so much a fantasy, I guess. Some strategic planning at all levels, passionate colleagues/teams and we could get this closer to a reality.
Well, here I am and what a week! Had a good intention to blog more often (and I will), but …
Needed to think about a few things before I started. I wondered whether I would like to have one blog around a certain theme or topic and another separate one for something else. Of course, after I played around a bit I realised that the wonderful world of “tags” would sort that out for me. Then I have to be honest and admit that I was anxious about the Twitter buddies who have threatened to visit my blog and read my thought processes and ideas. Still don’t really know what I really, really think about this. Some might read what I have to say and think, “She’s not as smart as I thought she was!”
Well, I’ll just have to live with that because the big picture is that we all blog and read blogs to raise the bar and think about our thinking in relation to education. This feels different for me to have to write it all down instead of thinking it over myself, with only myself to offer a comment or blarping it all to any and everyone who will listen where there isn’t time to ponder and leave a comment.
I think back to my early days of “reflection” when I first began my Bachelor of Learning Management with CQU. We were required to reflect on our reflections it seemed. Many reflections seemed so contrived, because it was ‘required’, but it did force us to find that little bit of time to do ‘it’ and for me it did become a very useful habit and tool. I wish I could have captured those first few years of teaching via blog/journal/notes, to look back on now (particularly my first year). It would have made for very interesting reading, and I know now, would have contained all of the ingredients of a bestseller, maybe entitled, “The Year of Living Dangerously” or “For the Term of Her Natural Life”, because that’s what it felt like:)
“Reflections” in those early days (at Uni) were useful to me but there was never an expectation that someone else would read it, think about it and perhaps even leave a comment and that’s why they could be contrived. Always convincing myself that everything was ok, and that this was something I was cut out for. Towards the end of my first year of teaching I really realised the importance of ‘reflection’ and it was probably the thing that saved my sanity and career when I looked over my ‘reflections’ as data and saw that I was ok, those kids were quite a handful and I was actually doing a good job and they were actually growing and learning. I had spent most of the year reflecting on my own practice and beliefs, always second guessing myself and changing, changing, changing … which was probably good too!
