technology – Page 3 – A Box of Thistles

Engaging and Extending

Published on 5th August 2014 by robeanneLeave a comment

Teachers at my school are amazing. They, like many other teachers, have coped with a huge amount of change. Scarcely has one new intiative been incorporated into already busy schedules than another is introduced. There is little time to assimilate, practise and embed. Two years ago we introduced a BYOD programme and we focused our Professional Learning on blending technology with effective pedagogy. This year the plan was to have some time to consolidate what we had explored last year. Then GAFE came along and we had to put plans on hold. After three years of pushing for the school to adopt GAFE, all of a sudden we got the go ahead and we were determined to make sure that our teachers and admin staff were as well-trained as possible. Term 1 was spent learning how to manage gmail, Google calendars, and Docs. As you can imagine, some people took it and ran with it, others, are still feeling overwhelmed! However, they continue to be positive and motivated as we have continued to support and develop.

Last week we had some really rich discussion looking at the eLearning Planning Framework with our teachers. The eLearning Planning Framework is “a tool to help schools and teachers measure eLearning capability. It can support regular self-review and subsequent improvement of eLearning skills and knowledge, in ways that reflect our bi-cultural heritage”. As we started our journey on the eLearning road 3 years ago our BLING group explored the eLPF and put ourselves at the Emerging level for most areas, definitely Pre-emerging at some areas and with pockets of Engaging in terms of individual teachers using and embedding technology in their teaching programmes.

After two years of professional learning focused on exploring how technology can be blended with pedagogy we thought it was timely to look at the eLPF as a whole teaching staff. My motto for this year’s professional learning sessions has been “short and snappy”. Whilst we finish early every Wednesday afternoon to allow time for professional learning we are conscious still that our teachers are under huge pressure. Last week Junior reports were due the next day and so a short, meaningful, engaging session was called for.

The objectives of this session were:

to introduce the eLearning Planning Framework to teachers
to examine where we sit as a school within the framework
to identify what we need to do next

Snapshot

In cross-curricular groups of four with a facilitator, a recorder and a set of colour-coded descriptor statements from the eLPF, the aim was to choose one statement from each colour that they thought best described where we sat as a school. This was a quick 5 minute, gut reaction activity to get a very quick snapshot. The recorder transferred the group’s choices onto a shared Google Doc.

Exploration

After a brief opportunity to share the groups then had 30 minutes to look in more depth at one of the sections of the eLPF. We had taken out Technology and Infrastructure so the remaining 4 sections were randomly distributed to the 14 groups. Our Senior Leadership team worked in a group together to nut out the Leadership and Strategic Direction section. The idea was that we would get a broad idea of where we sat without having to spend a lot of time going through the whole document. We asked the groups to consider where we were as a a school but also to reflect where they were on a personal level as they talked. The discussions that ensued were engaging, at times quite heated, and very robust. It was fascinating listening to them and joining in as I circulated. It was also very tempting to let them keep going but, conscious of time, we kept to our schedule.

Human Bar Chart

Time to get up and move around! The groups were asked to look at the complete page 3 from which the statements for the first activity had been cut. They reflected on the statements they had originally chosen and then looked at where they had assessed us to be in their particular focus section to see if it was the same. Then they came with a “label” for their section and stood on our “stair-o-meter” – Pre-emerging at the bottom of the stairs and Empowering at the top. I think you will agree that the results were fairly unanimous! We are engaging!

Reading the summaries of the discussions that were shared with us via their Google Docs painted a much more detailed picture. We think that maybe our teachers are just too hard on themselves! For many of the aspects within their sections they suggested that there were elements of extending and the examples they gave to justify their viewpoints were robust and very valid.

For those that are interested, here is a copy of the plan for the session.

We followed up this session with a discussion document for the respective faculties to look at in the Learning Area PL slot the following week.

Pencils

Published on 8th December 2013 by robeanne1 Comment

I was just scrolling through my twitter feed and found this.

It is a very simple and graphic way of illustrating Roger’s Bell curve of adoption. I also think that it is a very apt image to use for education. However, it made me think of a “story” that went around the email circuit way back in the 90’s when I was first experimenting with using computer technology in the classroom. When we were fighting to get computers in every classroom and not just in “Computer Suites”, when we wanted to have a little bit more control over the computers rather than being magnanimously granted the honour of being able to book into a computer suite once a month, when control was wielded self-importantly by those who “knew” and who had the “power”.

Here is the story:

Pencils Across the Curriculum
A Fairy Story

Bryn Jones c 1990
(Except for some very minor revisions, the text is as it was in 1990)

SCENE : It is deep in the past, schools are using chalk and slates, stylus and tablets, chisels and granite. Suddenly a new technology appears:

The Pencil!

Once upon a time, the Ministry of Education, after appointing a Special Pencil Task Force and inviting tenders from all the major Pencil manufacturers, gave 16 Pencils to each High School as part of a Special Pencil initiative.

(They also gave ONE Pencil to each Primary School but that’s another story!).

This is the story of two of those High Schools.

SCHOOL A

Opened a New Pencil Centre in a blaze of publicity and housed all 16 Pencils in it. They appointed a Teacher-in-Charge of Pencils.

They were worried that someone might steal these rare and valuable Pencils so they put bars on the windows.

“Special Pencil Centre” signs were painted on the outside wall to tell the world that they were proud of their Pencils and that Pencils are special.

Teachers were not allowed to use Pencils unless teaching a Pencil Studies course – special training was needed to handle these expensive and delicate instruments: teachers needed to understand about Hardness, Length, Handling, Care and Safety (Pencils are very sharp).

Pencil Awareness was introduced as a compulsory course for all Year 8 students – they studied the Applications of Pencils, Pencils in Drawing, Pencils in Writing, the Social Implications of Pencils, Design and Manufacture of Pencils, History of Pencils and Future Trends in Pencils.

10 Pencil Scholarships were offered to local primary students to attract the brightest and best.

One day the Art teacher heard about these new Pencils and thought they could be useful in Art classes but the Pencil Studies teacher explained that all the Pencils were always being used by Pencil Studies classes, and anyway, you need special training to use a Pencil.

The Pencil Studies teacher agreed to do a few lessons on the use of Pencils in Art as part of the Pencil Awareness Course (despite not knowing anything about Art).

“Wouldn’t it be better if we had our own Pencils in the Art Dept?” inquired the Art teacher.

“NO, NO, NO! DON’T BE SILLY!” countered the Pencil Studies teacher.

A similar thing happened in Technical Drawing:

“I’ve heard these Pencils are great for Technical Drawing – really sharp!” and “It sure beats chiselling in granite – can we have some?”

Across the way in English:

“Could we use Pencils do you think? Would they make it easier to create and edit writing?”

“We’ll see what we can do,” said the Teacher-in-Charge of Pencils, “but it’s very hard to fit any more into the Pencils Awareness Course. Besides, all our Pencil teachers are incredibly busy”.

In Business Education they got the news:

“Accounts, Letter Writing, Bookkeeping…could pencils have a role to play here?”

Similar things happened in Music/ Theatre Arts/ Home Economics/ Science/ Mathematics/ Library.

Demand for Pencil Studies courses became so great that School A had to spend $100 000 on new buildings to house more Pencil Labs and hired more Pencil teachers.

Meanwhile, back in the Technical Drawing room the stylus and tablet is all they have, in Art, chalk is state-of-the-art and in Business Ed the abacus is all the go.

Tons of granite are consumed daily and a granite recycling programme is introduced.

Five years later School A had 5 Pencil Labs, 6specialist Pencil teachers and half the students doing Pencil Studies courses.

But no-one else in the school ever used a Pencil!

Then one day all the Pencil Studies teachers left to work in private schools and industry!

SCHOOL B

School B also started with it’s 16 Pencils in a special room but they had a PLAN.

The plan was ‘THE PENCILS ACROSS THE CURRICULUM PLAN’.

It was a Brave Plan, a Bold Plan, a Problematical Plan – but it was a Good Plan!

They introduced special programmes to lend Pencils to teachers and put a Pencil in each staff office.

They put a few Pencils in the staff room so that staff could play with them at lunchtime.

They paid for teachers to go on Pencil courses.

They even put some Pencils in the Library for ANYONE to use even if they had no training!

“What? Anyone? “, “Oh what problems!”

“Who will sharpen them?”

“Who can understood all the jargon – HB, 2B, 2H?”

“What about quality?”

“What about editing – who will replace the erasers?”

“Who will look after them?”

“What about compatibility problems – 0.2 , 0.5 mm or non-standard leads?”

“Who decides whether to have hexagonal or circular Pencils?”

“What about all these new Pencil technologies which appear with monotonous regularity – who will make decisions?

Well yes, there were a few teething troubles but somehow people coped. After a while they began to realise that Pencils were quite easy to use, even for teachers!

A few Pencils were put in subject areas for teachers to experiment with.

Some teachers were so impressed, they even bought their own Pencils and wondered how they ever managed without one.

There were still major problems to overcome as far as using Pencils in the actual classroom. New discipline and management problems that teachers hadn’t faced before. Was it necessary for every student to have a Pencil each or could they share or work in groups?

Would One Pencil per Classroom make a difference?

To begin with, only a few brave teachers used Pencils in their lessons but as time went by more and more teachers saw the amazing work being done by the students of the teachers who used Pencils and they began to ask for some Pencils in their classroom too.

Five years later the school didn’t need its Pencil Lab any more except for a few students who wanted to do Pencil Science at University or get a job in the Pencil Industry. There were Pencils all over the school and most staff and students used them quite naturally. Some even carried a pencil about in their pocket.

This was written around 1990 and I am pretty sure that most people will have read this story several times over the last twenty years. Sadly, there are still schools where this system holds sway, there are still schools where people lack the courage to let their staff play, experiment and explore, there are still teachers who lack the confidence to take a risk, to try something new, to allow themselves to “fail”. There are also plenty of pressures on our schools and teachers to succeed, to have high pass rates in examinations, pressure to perform and to be seen to perform, pressure from parents to educate their children the way they were taught, self-imposed pressure to not fail. Pressures that hinder educators from doing what we know could work and could improve the way we teach and our students can learn.

Roger’s Bell Curve and the Pencil Illustration underline the fact that we are all human, we are all different, some of us naturally want to try new things and are not afraid to fail, some of us want to try but want others to trail blaze and we will follow more comfortably in their wake, some of us just want to keep on doing what we are doing, it is easy, it is comfortable, it works, but we might just be tempted to try something new once it has been proven to work. And some, well we just want to hide in a corner and hope that the future will go away; if we keep quiet for long enough and resist for long enough maybe we will be forgotten about and nobody will bother us any more. Worse though, are the nay-sayers, those that actively undo the good work that others are doing through constant moaning, undermining comments, they suck the good will and the positivity out of workplaces.

We also have to understand that our students will also match these human qualities. They may all have been born in the “Digital Age” – brought up in an age where technology is at their fingertips but they are not all “Digital Natives”. They do not all use, know how to use, or like to use technology all the time. Nor do they often see the benefits of what they see as a toy, to aid them in their learning.

The challenge is to somehow encourage everyone to realise the worth of trying something new. Not just doing new for the sake of new, but new because it helps us to do things more effectively, more efficiently. The challenge is to negate the “nay-sayers”; they are often a vocal minority but they hold some sway.

“Attuning yourself to others—exiting your own perspective and entering theirs—is essential to moving others. One smart, easy, and effective way to get inside people’s heads is to climb into their chairs.” Dan Pink

Thanks to George Couros for the above quote from his blogpost “The Value of the “Naysayer and Antagonist””. He has some interesting things to say but I like his perspective that we all have the potential to be a “naysayer” or an “antagonist” depending on the context we find ourselves in. There is also a lot to be said for putting ourselves in the shoes of others to be able to understand where they are coming from. Food for thought…

A learning and sharing celebration

Published on 30th October 201315th July 2018 by robeanneLeave a comment

This afternoon we celebrated the learning we have done throughout the year. Our Professional Development focus for 2013 has been on blending technology and effective pedagogy into classroom practice. The main aim was to encourage our teachers to explore and develop their personal competency and skills and, when they are ready, to incorporate them into their teaching programmes. We hoped to provide a non-threatening, encouraging backdrop whilst also setting expectations that this was the way we wanted our teachers to go.

As you might expect we are all at different stages both as far as technology goes as well as pedagogy. It was interesting to note from discussions in our final module workshops that younger teachers are keen to learn more about traditional teaching strategies, such as story telling and role-play that are used by the older generation of teachers, as they have not learned these at Teachers ‘ College. How powerful is the opportunity to talk, share and learn from each other? It gives us food for thought for the future – how can we take advantage of the experience and expertise of our older teachers to pass on their knowledge to the new generation? Interestingly, it is not always the young that grasp the technology in both hands, many of our older teachers are proponents of embedding technology into their teaching. Developing an effective two way flow of ideas and strategies has to be a focus for next year. All this makes me think how lucky we are that we have the luxury as a State Integrated school to provide the time for Professional Development that other schools may not be able to.

For the final session of PD we wanted to be able to celebrate the work that we knew teachers were doing, the journeys they had been on in developing their expertise and exploring the possibilities that technology could offer to enhance the excellent teaching and learning that already goes on in our classrooms. We didn’t want it to be onerous at this busy end of the year (though which part if the school year isn’t busy?) so we asked for volunteers to do no more than a five minute presentation. We followed up the email with some shoulder taps and then arm twisting! It isn’t that our teachers aren’t happy to share; they are just reluctant to “show off”! Lots of lights hiding under bushels! We were also keen that it wasn’t the “early adopters” that stood up, but those who the rest of the teachers would see as “one of them”.

I have to confess to being a little nervous that the “sharefest” that I had planned would fizzle but I should have had more faith in my colleagues and with a bit of cajoling and gentle encouragement (that may not be quite how they saw it!) I had 6 willing volunteers from a range of departments.

I am not going to go on here as I have collated the tweets of the session. The conversations were rich, the sharers were amazing and we clearly have lots of ideas for the future.

Ulearn13 – a reflection

Published on 13th October 2013 by robeanneLeave a comment

Another whirlwind three days of stimulation, learning, exploration, interaction, meeting new people, meeting up with old friends, putting faces to twitter handles, sharing ideas and having fun.

This is my fourth Ulearn and I think I an finally getting the hang of it! My first was in Rotorua, the sole representative from my school, and I had never been to such a big conference before. I was lost figuratively and literally, I knew not a soul and felt quite daunted by booking breakouts, making notes, finding my way around, plucking up courage to speak to people, I really felt like the new kid on the block. But I was so inspired by the speakers at the keynotes and in the breakouts I went to and went back home with my head full to bursting with ideas. It took me weeks to process my detailed notes!

In subsequent years I have managed to persuade colleagues to come along too and this year I was one of eight delegates from my school. The opportunities for sharing what we have learned is going to be huge.

I have always avidly taken notes at every session I have attended. Sometimes I have then diligently transcribed them and created reports that nobody reads. I have blogged about sessions that have particularly inspired me and shared Google docs with colleagues. Feedback to staff at school has been ad hoc, mainly through the conversations I have with members of my department and others as I support them using technology and during interval and lunch time but also more recently through or PD sessions that this year are focused on blended learning.

This year I decided that I was not going to frantically scribble notes but instead join the rich seam of twitter interactions and use the comments and conversations that ensue to reflect on the sessions. It was energising! The key messages were tweeted and re-tweeted, quoted and referenced and have since been Storified or blogged, and tweeted out again for further comment and reflection. More people were tweeting than ever before and the depth of comments and interactions is getting better and better. There are still the soundbites but if you can keep up – and I have to confess that I struggle – the replies, favourites and retweets tell a really rich story.

But the most exciting thing about this year is that I was awarded an e-fellowship. I have to confess that this dominated my experience of this year’s conference. Wednesday was spent trying not to let the secret out to friends and colleagues whilst bursting with excitement and anticipation on the inside! On Thursday morning I had to avoid arrangements to meet up with colleagues as we (the e-fellows) were to meet at 8.30am to get instructions about the “announcement”, and Mark Pesce’s excellent keynote was spent in a whirl of congratulatory tweets after we were presented on stage prior to his speech. I was amazed at how many people came over to me to congratulate me, I had not quite realised how many people I knew or who knew me. Isn’t it strange that you think that people don’t know who you are even though you know that you recognise others. I tend to think that they are more well known than me and that I am just, well, me!

The next challenge was my own presentation on Friday morning. My first time presenting and on the morning after the night before! “All that glitters” was not really glittering in our presentation room as some delegates wandered in looking decidedly ragged! The conference dinner was fantastic, the music was great, we danced until our feet were sore and sang until we had no voices – well, some people did. I confess that I reluctantly left at 11pm but not before a good dancing session.

So, I will share more notes and reflections of the sessions I attended but for a start here is my storified version of Dame Anne Salmond’s closing keynote. It was an inspiring, thought provoking speech that encapsulated many of the themes and ideas of the conference. It is just a shame that so many had to leave to catch planes before they could hear it. And for those who couldn’t be bothered to stay, you really missed out.

http://storify.com/robeanne/ulearn13

…and the take away from the conference – lifelong learning. I want this tee-shirt!

tee shirt with words "I'll stop learning when I'm dead. ....maybe"

Finding the Balance – and taking the plunge!

Published on 13th October 2013 by robeanneLeave a comment

Finding the Balance

This evening I did my first Eduignite presentation! Very nervous and I am sure I gabbled but it seemed to be well received. What is an Eduignite evening? 20 slides on a fifteen second auto transition which gives you five minutes to speak on any topic dear to your heart! We heard eight inspiring talks this evening interspersed with good conversation and drinks and nibbles. The aim is to bring educators together to share and learn from each other in an informal gathering. There are Eduignite evenings held throughout the country usually in the penultimate week of each school term. Although we are often tired and feeling the pressures of the end of term by then if you make the effort to get to one it certainly gives you a boost in terms of ideas and creativity.

Here is the transcript of my presentation – the link to the slides is above.

Connections are important – our first connections with our parents help us to develop who we are, how we behave, how we interact with other people. Those habits inform our interactions with the the global online community.

It is important to maintain some balance in our relationships and our lives so that we don’t lose sight of our humanity in a world that is increasingly played out online. We have to maintain connections, build relationships and stay grounded.

We have to nurture our connections to nature if we are to maintain our dignity and humanity in the face of constant change. Maoist philosophy sees life as endless change in which we have to keep our minds open to grow and learn.

For me humanity is our ability to empathise, to care, to connect, to communicate, to feel, to believe, to be spontaneous; it is the spirituality that you can’t pin down but you know to be the essence of our relationships.

People are the root of our connections to the earth and our humanity so this sculpture called “Tangata Whenua” represents the idea of humanity. My son’s hand connects with the sculpture, connects him to the earth and to the people who inhabit it.

In adverts for new technology – I don’t know if you have seen the adverts for Corning Glass, nature often seems to be missing from visions of the future. Everything is white or glass and sterile. But I was struck by this description of an exhibition at the Hamilton Sculpture Park. ‘We sometimes forget our connection to nature and our instinctual selves when we are immersed in a society of fast information and constant stimulation.”

One of the artists suggested that our own experiences inform how we see the future, how we interact, how we cope with change. Is the past a beginning that opens up and generates connections? Does the past empty into the future? And is there a danger that our potential is limited by the limits we impose on ourselves.

So what effect has technology had on society and our humanity? Wide swathes of native bush and forest were cleared in the 1870s to make space for the extraction of gold. Massive stone pillars, towering buildings and huge cyanide tanks dominated the landscape which was once home to native flora and fauna.

Just over 100 years later nature has reclaimed the land. The amazing technology that belched steam, smoke and poison into the atmosphere has gone; the remnants of a once powerful technology are overgrown with flowers and shrubs and the birds are starting to return.

The online world has the capacity to reach across the world, across continents, into our living rooms, into the palms of our children’s hands. We have to engender a sense of responsibility, a sense of morality, a sense of belonging to a world that feeds us and nurtures us.

Nothing else has had that power since, perhaps, Gutenberg’s printing press, radio and then television. It is up to us to teach our children to filter, to be critical, to assess and to analyse what they see, hear and read; to consider their digital footprint as well as their environmental one – they are, after all, inextricably linked.

Midway is an island in the North Pacific 2000 miles from the nearest continent which is the subject of a film. It explores the plight of Layson albatross who ingest the plastic waste that we carelessly discard. It is a graphic and shocking expose of how our actions impact on nature and the environment.

And if our thoughtlessness about physical waste wreaks untold damage on the other side of the world, what might carelessness with our personal information do to humanity? Do we consider how what we post, how we share and how we interact with each other online affects other people and ourselves.

Technology is part of our lives. Technology is everywhere; In school we use pens and pencils, books, slates, blackboards, whiteboards, interactive whiteboards, tape recorders, computers, CD players, video players, data projectors.

At home we use telephones, mobile phones, dishwashers, washing machines, we watch television, we listen to radio, toast bread in toasters, heat food in microwaves. We drive cars, we have electric lights, heaters to keep us warm and air conditioning to keep us cool. The list is endless, so what is the problem?

What we accept today, without even thinking about it, is the disruptive technology of the past. Technology that made people stop and think about the status quo, it challenged people’s thinking, it changed the environment for better or for worse, it changed society and the way that we behave communicate, connect and interact.

There is always something new, but how long will it last? And what will be along to take its place? How does the way we use technology affect our humanity? If technology is always and has always and will always be with us, then we have to find our place within it. Where do we fit in as teachers and learners?

I believe there will always be a need for face to face teaching and learning. Online courses provide an extra dimension; they democratise education = anytime, anyplace, anywhere for anybody. But technology is just another tool to enhance learning….

The key to effective learning according to Dr John Hinchcliff is relationships and you really need to be face to face, in the same room to build relationships, don’t you?

John Hinchcliffe says “learning is taken to a higher level when it is done with humility, and with unconditional personal regard.” Which brings us back to relationships, to the way we interact, to the way we make connections and to humanity.

Life outside the school walls

Published on 19th June 2013 by robeanne3 Comments

https://creartfuldodger.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/les-metiers/

Do you sometimes feel that your whole life revolves around school, education, our students, the lesson you are teaching next, the next round of reports, marking? It is often difficult to gain some perspective and remember that there is a world outside school. We also sometimes get very wound up about the fact that “we have no time” to do anything but meet the daily demands of our work, like improve our practice, read about what other teachers are doing in other schools or go to conferences. I was reminded this weekend of an analogy made at a conference a couple of years ago about our reluctance sometimes to keep up with new approaches to teaching and learning. Imagine you went to the dentist, you walk into the surgery, there is an old uncomfortable leather chair that has two settings; upright and flat. Instead of bright shiny, clean instruments the dentist has the sort of equipment that you remember from your childhood. There is no injected anaesthetic or even any mouthwash, there are spitoons on the bench …. I don’t need to go on. Would you be horrified that this dentist had apparently not moved with the times, was not taking advantage of the benefits that technology and advances in his field could offer both him and his patients? Wouldn’t you EXPECT a dentist or a doctor or any other professional with whom you have interaction to be abreast of modern methods, technology, thinking, science? I would.

I found this article, “Virtualy Reality display lets fire crews see in a blaze” in the New Scientist and marvelled at how this technology could help save lives and these sorts of advances are happening and being used in creative, humanitarian ways all over the world and in all sorts of professional spheres. Now I know that teachers are not in the business of saving lives …… but we are in the business of changing lives.