What does C21 learning look like?

Yesterdays seminar What does C21 learning  look like? – interesting day with Mark Pesce doing a great job of hosting what could be argued to be an event dominated by vendor interests. This was the formal agenda but thanks to an undercurrent in the twitter back channel, a parallel commentary was running.  Mark & Gary Putland tried to bring the channel into the mainstream conference. This is becoming an emerging  aspect to the conference format– with the informal chat running ‘underneath’ – both with conference attendees and those outside.  But maybe at the end of the day  its the more potent discourse. Provided some tweets below which captured the undercurrent. Must get an IPhone…

 

C21 Learning

A good discussion running on David Warwicks  blog on what is 21s Century learning. Dipping his toe into a muddy puddle, he has offered some succinct points, being careful not discount 20th century practise of- listening, watching, remembering, his following points grow out of these dimensions: questioning your learning experience, engaging your information environment, proving (and disproving) what you find, Constructing (inventing) new learning and knowledge teaching others what you have learned being respected for the power of your learning, and being responsible for your learning and its outcomes.

 

NSW DET Netbooks

Lenovo is certainly getting its expected deal of press on the laptops for schools program. The S10e is an impressive device; for NSW DET- 8-9 hrs battery life, intelligent cycling, RFD/ RFI antitheft tagging-  certainly the company has risen to our spec challenge to produce 250 000 units in a very aggressive time frame. Lenevo is a new company in this space (taking over the IBM part of this market in 2005). So  its interesting to contemplate the commercial advantages of such a deal- triple bottom line- will they get brand loyalty, is it a community service & to what extent can they trade on being the supplier of arguably the single largest educational jurisdiction in the world.?

Watching Gruen transfer tonight –  these questions came to mind- as they showed  how the NY public system met the challenge of increasing attendance rates of its 1.1 million students. Its Million campaign is based the mobile phone. It began with a pilot program of 2800 students in seven schools. Students were each given a mobile phone, which switched between School’s In and School’s Out mode. When the kids were in school, the calling and text functions were deactivated. But that didn’t mean the phone was out of action. Educational software loaded onto the phone meant students could use it for research. It was also a platform for tests. Must check on how this is playing out – and how the students differentiate  between ‘school and personal’ use? Is it possible to achieve this in the one device? Or does that status symbol the mobile phone lose its edge once it is ‘institutionalised’? Maybe some pointers here as we go into the digital revolution.

 

 

1:1 laptops- research dilemma

Sifting through some current research papers on the value of 1:1 laptops, took me back to Tom Reeves coments some years ago regarding the paucity of good educational research. And the difficulty of any ed research are the variables to account for- in the case of 1:1 these include: student age/ ability, type of device, use in and out of class, teachers capacity, subject area, length of study, IT infastructure and support, and access to learning tools and resources.

 

Loos or Laptops

The announcement from last weekends COAG meeting on the roll out of laptops for NSW public schools, has produced a frenzy of comments in the media. While most letters to the ditor raised the inevitable- ‘why can’t the money be spent on toilets’ & ‘ I could get a cheaper deal through Harvey Norman’ I particularly liked the banner- ‘Laptops in schools will be antisocial’- A zippy internet connection? sure. A social network no way? The article goes on to decry the fact that students won’t be a ble to access MySpace or Facebook. Apart from the obvious policy/duty of care headaches in allowing free access- I’d argue that with 1.4 million students in the system, this constitutes a significant social network.

 

Cyberbullying

After witnessing an incident with my daughter recently, and a mounting interest in this at work-the paper (thanks Jane) was timely.  ‘Confronting the Pedagogical Challenge of Cyber Safety’  highlights the paucity of empirical studies in educational contexts (‘pedagogical’ bit strong here). The increasing incidence of cyberbullying and what constitutes cyberbullying are covered, and Hanewall presents an interesting  taxonomy of Cyberbullying. All the more reason to encourage programs such as the kids Superclubs (UK) and being trialled in many Australian States. This initiative helps apprentice young children into good online habits when social.

 

Mind over matter

Todays Edu.au seminar with Professor Martin Westwell Martin (Director Flinders Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century ). Below I’ve taken some of the main points of interest -

Teachers are asked to be experts in everything. Whereas in other sectors, people can specialise.

• People now say intelligence 20% nature, 80% nurture — used to be other way around
• There is very little doubt that violence in an environment causes violent attitudes and behaviour – your brain re-wires.
• An interesting trend — young people are better than ever at distinguishing between authentic and synthetic environments/environments
• So socialistion the primary use of Internet – not finding info
• Our brains are constantly wiring and re-wiring
• But the emotional context has a large effect on the learning and thinking

 

More Shift happens

I know these are popular at the moment but this latest version is neat

 

 

 

Wikipedia recognised as a text

Australian first-NSW HSC students will from next year be able to take a course in studying Wikipedia, as part of the English Syllabus (SMH report). Hopefully my kids schools will no longer send notes home every year advisng not to use it.

 

Wait’n for the revolution

A recent seminar on our DER left me wondering (again) how many times I’ve sat through expositions of the wonders of Web2.0 , and how our schools are failing to engage students with technologies of the street. Over the years inspired presentations by bloggeratti’s best -Pesces, Downes, Levine, Siemens, Seyfangs and Wales, of the wired world. All very eloquent and persuasive – but there I sat yesterday wondering when we’ll stop twittering with the technologies and start properly engaging the stakeholders (political/education community) on what all this means/implies and how to more properly move education from the domain of institutions towards  that of the individual.  Time to move from the ‘experimental ‘to embedded practise.

 

BECTA rejects Office 07

Yesterday Becta sent a formal complaint to the European Union against Microsoft- claiming their products do not suport open standards. BECTA says that Office 2007’s underlying format, known as Office Open XML, is not interoperable with software from other vendors.  BECTA wants the EU to compel Microsoft to support open standards, such as the Open Document Format. “Upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended,” said the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, in a report issued at the time. The report’s conclusions could end up costing Microsoft millions of dollars in lost sales in the U.K. public sector market.

Strong stuff- but I’d ban it for reasons of usability alone.

 

 

 

Lessons in paradise

Spending some time last week in Fiji, visited a school on Malolo Levu island. It was the last day of term, so the kids were happy and appreciative, but like so many schools in emerging economies that seemed a regular state. So it was great for my two kids to hear how the principal had in his two years at the school turned it around from one of the lowest to highest ranked in Fiji. This was not only because of his educational leadership but also rallying the entire community behind his cause. This involved students coming to the school at night to study (parents bringing dinner), and also implementing changes to their non school activities such as swiming in the sea mid week. The principal had the backing of the village chief/elders for this denial- convincing them that the kids were too tired during the school day. It seems to have worked. He lectured our kids on how you need to respect the elders (something he observed to be lacking in Aus schools).

 

Interactive White Board-primary lessons

Interesting to see the changes in my daughters primary school with the introduction of IWBs in every classroom.  Her teacher seems to have undergone (as the principal) described it – a rebirth in terms of teaching. Alice comes home and babbles on about the new things which they tried on the boards. Yep- ‘they’- as in real collaborative learning.

 

Filters a no go

Seems like another argument against net filters is emerging as the previous Fed Govs NetAlert campaign undergoes a rethink. Piece by Heath Gilmour claims that the Rudd Government has branded a failure the $85 million software filter scheme to protect young Australians from online pornography and will review its future.

 

Waiting for the revolution

Reading today in the SMH about the demise in the record industry, seems to have parallels and similar lessons for education.  Firstly the industry is based on flawed assumptions:

• Generic business mode
• Monopoly on information
• Single source providors
• Users can’t be creators
• Captive audience

 

Go ask Corey

In all the media frenzy around Australias new bad boy Corey Worthington (>230 Google refs so far) -no analysis of the role played by MySpace in promoting Coreys’ lifestyle. In the Phew report on teen use of social media (Dec 2007) the use of these tools is growing rapidly-

 

First lists for 2008

 Back to the Blog  (and work) after being ‘off air’ due to a lightning hit & feeling the need for a break from everything…

The Trendsters are making their proclamations for 2008 . Closer to home, Jerry’s list shadowed my experience of purchasing a computer/peripherals. Especially liked this one from The Sydney Morning Herald (thanks Grant)

1. Google will still have access to more information about you than your mother has.2. The DVD drive on your computer will still be ideal for holding your first cup of coffee while Windows Vista loads.3. Internet filters will still require children to help their parents view the websites they want.4. Spammers will still exploit the inverse relationship that exists between IQ and greed.5. Social networking sites will still be the best place for identity thieves to refine their craft.6. People will still visit Second Life trying to discover if there’s something to do other than to see if there’s something to do.7. YouTube will still be the definitive source for guidance on how to train cats to flush a toilet.8. Mobile phones will still come with a choice of 200 ring tones, none of which anyone wants.9. Broadband in rural Australia will still involve paper cups and string.10. Video iPod users will still squint into postage-stamp screens and convince themselves they’ve enjoyed watching something.

In my work space I’m hearing calls for orientation to ‘immersive learning’ (why not a good dunking) and Web 3.0(…why not). I think the reality check of the BECTA report  (Times) says it all- lets just genuinely deliver what the teachers/students want in an accessible environment which supports online learning and leave the semantics to the spin merchants.

 

At work at play…but not in schools

Adrienne Goehler (former Berlin senator for culture/media) recently quoted in a visit to Sydney “ The philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote ‘little distinguishes the intellectual lifestyle so deeply from the bourgeois as the fact that the former does not acknowledge the alternative between work and pleasure’. As Lisa Pryor (SMH Sept 17-18) observes, this feature has now liquefied and expanded to other social classes- we are living like intellectuals. Pryor states that work is only one of the pursuits people do in the office. “Employers expect us to be flexible [linked to work related matters outside normal hours], so we expect the same from them”.

 

Re-form(al) learning

Increasingly I’ve been struck by the need for education systems to recognise and embrace the role of informal learning-but maybe thats an oxymoron. If we define informal learning as that mediated by a teacher/instructor, to a set curriculum- then informal learning has no place- or does it?

I’d argue that Informal learning increases as students become mature/autonomous learners. What many senior school students enjoy is the space for independent learning. When they hit university-its this aspect they seem to relish (I did). Ellen Wagner’s interview with Jay Cross stresses the need to embrace informal learning especially for training and enterprise learning.

 

Once were natives

Seems like everyones over it- George Siemens comprehensive post on Prensky’s ‘Digital natives’ refers to the numbers of papers he has refereed using the notion. In a paper I wrote nearly twelve months ago, a reviewer similarly pulled me up (thanks Susan) for perpetuating such a generalised concept. My previous post on Barbara Combes paper is also worth revisiting. Daniel Livingstone’s comments were spot on and his recent post also adds to the groundswell of passion. At Alan Levine’s recent Sydney workshop I also detected some steam coming out of his ‘fluffy’ ears as he decried the validity of the concept. At least Prensky got the debate going. And when the notion is discussed by two fisherman on a remote NSW beach (as I overheard last weekend)-  it gives me a better line of chat than “how are the fish biting?”

 

Being digital citizens

Email from colleague Janet Burstall about a ‘Cybernite’ held at her daughters school (for parents and students) regarding being a digital citizen- great initiative. Wonder how many other schools are doing this? Time we (DET) thought of putting together a reference package for guiding discussion. Posts such as Ewan McIntosh’s and intiatives such as MGS and some previous, would help frame this. Need to be careful here -its not just about Internet safety – (implying we are passive recipients of information/media) but rather discussing how we can be active participants in social networking environments which we will continue to evolve- and in the process define ourselves (both collectively & individually) as C21 citizens.

 

Alan Levine-being there…

Alan’s presentation on behalf of the AFLF group in Sydney, was a whirlwind trip of Web 2 offerings. After a number of these events-its time to act on how we as educators/administrators can knock down -or at least provide gates in the walled gardens that surround our formal education environment. Alan’s visual metaphors of walls were very effective- maybe we need to adorn our offices with some of our own images. His (attribution) use of the term ‘permeable’ is also interesting in the context of providing access through these walls.