Bernajean Porter gave the opening keynote on ‘Raising a Generation for Greatness’. She spoke about a three to four month window of opportunity for change to take place when an opportunity comes along, before the mould on the jelly sets, which followed up nicely from Bruce Dixon’s opening, which talked about the once in a generation opportunity that the government’s investment in 1-1 computing.

She also described the USA context, which she referred to as ‘no child left untested’, a nice point given our government’s recent sabre-rattling about standards and accountability.

Porter spoke about our ‘unprecedented mission to shift cultures and gears in our classrooms’, about the power that we’re putting in the hands of our students, and what we’re doing with that power.

She raised the concept of ‘participatory cultures’ and showed us examples of students who’ve learned how to move forward in their learning without waiting for permission from their teachers, about the gap between what some students are doing and what their schools and teachers expect and allow. Her examples, of students doing great things for their communities, were examples that were all outside the school system and she argued that we should be trying to activate this kind of learning in our students in schools and a passion for learning.

One way to get this passion was her idea of whole days of ‘inquiry’; where students choose their own topics and are given time on them, something we’ve been thinking about for a new Year 9 program. She argued for some small space in schools for students to find their own interest and passion and how disengaged some students had become in traditional schools.

It’s not about the hardware; it’s the ‘headware’. She gave an example of a school district that spend six million dollars rolling out whiteboards but hadn’t changed the instructional strategies or pedagogy at all. It was just a more expensive story. She argued for a different story, for looking beyond the ’stuff’ to who owns the learning: the teachers or the students, and also who owns the questioning in the classroom.

One of the references she left us with was Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. It’s online here: http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.2108773/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id={CD911571-0240-4714-A93B-1D0C07C7B6C1}&notoc=1

I liked this cool looking graph from Techcrunch today, not just for its look at technology (I agree that tablet pcs are probably about to get some real impetus in the next year or so) but also because of its illustration of that cycle of innovation, expectation, hope, disappointment, small movements forward.

How might we apply it to educational technologies: blogs, wikis, IWBs, twitter, LMS systems? Or how might we apply it to educational ‘reforms’ or ‘revolutions’? Where does statewide testing, league tables, peformance based pay or the debate between phonics and whole-language sit on this continuum?

“Teachers must become comfortable as co-learners with
their students and with colleagues around the world. Today it is less
about staying ahead and more about moving ahead as
members of dynamic learning communities. The digital-age teaching
professional must demonstrate a vision of technology infusion and
develop the technology skills of others. These are the hallmarks
of the new education leader.”

—Don Knezek, ISTE CEO, 2008

The ISTE have just released a new set of standards for teachers and their leadership of technology. In summary, they are:

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

The ISTE says:

ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) have served as a roadmap since 1998 for improved teaching and learning by educators. ISTE standards for students, teachers, and administrators help to measure proficiency and set aspirational goals for the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to succeed in today’s Digital Age. Our proven leadership in developing these benchmarks and providing guidance in implementing them has resulted in broad adoption of the ISTE standards in the U.S. and in several countries.

You can download the standards HERE, or directly to the PDF HERE

Ning is an interesting concept; a build your own social networking site that lets you plug a whole lot of gadgets and widgets to create your own mini facebook or myspace for a group you organise.  I’m not sure of the security and whether it would work in a school, but it seems to be getting some education action if the tags are any guide.

You can see how some educators are using NING HERE

I’m not one who argues for the abandonment of schools, or that technology will make some physical meetings of teachers and students obsolete. I’ve always described technology as enhancing existing interactions and while there’s no doubt that the existing configurations could be considerably improved I’ve always argued that schools provide social benefits beyond the academic. It’s the same with home schooling, which lets too much go at the expense of the interactions likely to lead to future happiness and succcess.

Still, it’s not surprising to see that people who are home-schooling (55,000 British children according to this article) using technology to connect, enrolling in online schools like Internet High or creating virtual communities in Second Life. What is surprising perhaps is that some are seeing these online alternatives as superior to the old bricks and mortar environments.

This article, from the Independent says:

One of the more revolutionary methods is being explored by Dr Peter Twining,
head of the Open University’s Department of Education, who is examining the
possibilities of virtual environments as an alternative to the traditional
constraints of “buildings, subjects, classrooms, 30 kids and a teacher”
. According to Twining, a chasm has emerged between what is being taught in
schools (science, IT, geography, etc), and what pupils are experiencing in
their daily lives (Facebook, music downloads, social networking). He
believes using virtual environments could, “create a system that meets
the changing needs of 21st-century society”.

Twinings’ latest research project, Schome, is an “education system
for the digital age”. It brings 150 students of varying ages, to a
closed island in the virtual world, Second Life, and allows them to
build their own physical Es (or teachers). Instead of
teaching and assessing students to pass exams in “hard” subjects, such
as maths and physics, Schome teaches skills such as leadership,
collaboration and communication, by solving “real” problems in their
virtual world.

You can read the full article HERE, or enrol at InternetHigh HERE

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