Category Archives: Professional Learning

Haiku – in the clouds!

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Like all good things, the finest are not always found where you would expect them. The behemouth trade display at NECC mainly gave me a headache rather than inspiration – except for a couple of quiet finds that were buried amongst the usual widgets, gizmos and latest emperor’s new clothes of IT.

So after some delay I am looking back over some of those quiet discoveries.

Today I created my test account for Haiku Learning Management System. Now I am not an advocate of the usual wall-garden variety of LMS being a denizen of Web 2.0 cloud computing :-)   I understand the reason why schools go down that path. I have yet to see one that equates with the approach that LAMS (Learning Activity Management System)  takes – i.e. supporting the pedagogical side of learning, rather than just the organisation and presentation of a learning materials.  LAMS provides teachers with a highly intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities that make you THINK about your pedagogy. But that’s another story!

However,  if you must have something, then chose wisely and don’t look for 20th century solutions – focus on the current and future learning platform that IS the web.

This is why the Haiku LMS has instant appeal.  It is as easy to use as any blog, wiki, ning etc  tool you are currently playing with. It does what a good LMS needs to do – allows you to create classes, drop boxes, add attachements – whatever. Choose your own templates for a fun look too!

BUT here’s the BEST part – it already has over 80 Web 2.0 tools ready to embedd – just drag and drop to rearrange your layout!

Absolutely everything that you might want is there. If is isn’t – use the embedd code box to add the latest.  I remember them saying at the NECC stand that as soon as a good tool becomes available they will grab the API and add it to their Web 2.0 kit. Looking at the full set I found all the popular Web 2.0 tools, and some I wasn’t so familiar with and am now off to explore

This is the BEST of cloud computing I have seen for a school-based LMS yet.   The power of this is amazing and wonderful – and just what we should all be doing.

I would love for this to be used at my school.

Photo: Cloud Kicker

How do we support teachers? – Symposium response

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Digital Education Revolution – provide your feedback!

In Australia we have the Australian Government Quality Teacher Program (AGQTP), which includes teacher quality and their impact on student outcomes. Considerable funding has been directed towards this. Rolling out a range of workshops in regional areas, as well as activities with professional associations. Also considering subject-specific standards and on-line professional learning resources.

Suggestions from the floor:

Portfolio of examplars at the national level. Podcasts as resource tools. Fund technology coaches for schools. Consideration for remote areas of Australia – and how to transfer information to regional and remote areas. Collaboration between various sectors. Use technology to assess literacy standards in national testing programs.

Responses to questions from the sessions:

If teachers don’t have time to do it all! Yet we are re-tooling our whole processes of education – the exploration is going to take time – and will make us more efficient and integrated in the end. Any organisation that is going through the process of transformation, will required us to commit. Our pedagogical knowledge has to change – technology can solve the pedagogical issues if we want it to. So bottom line – buy time to learn!

The key issue remains the need to establish collaborative environments. We have more knowledge than we can share with old technologies.  Sessions like this symposium should be streamed, so that educators can talk in the ‘back channell’ promoting the conversation.

Assessment should be a trust relationship between the educator and the student.  It’s a true social network in the making – information should be exposed and developed, and made transparent.  We need to focus on the social networking of education.

The 21st century classroom is a state of mind.  It’s a set of relationships between someone who wants to learn and someone who wants to teach. The relationship is around the transfer of learning.  Education is dead: long live learning!

Photo: Listening to the Stars

Real Wired Child

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A while ago I had the opportunity to speak to the P&F at our largest high school. The topic was Myspace or Yours: Possibilities and Pitfalls.

Parents wanted to spend time talking about online safety, games, and hacking! Yes, it is true that for some of our students it is hard to provide them with the online and computer challenges that they crave.

I took with me a copy of Real Wired Child by Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. This is a wonderful guide for parents (unfamiliar with the online world) who want to know what their children are doing online, and what they can do to ensure their children’s wellbeing when they venture into cyberspace. Real Wired Child gives practical advice to parents on how they might manage their children’s online communications, social networking, web surfing, downloading and gaming. The truth is that we need to start teaching our students from a young age exactly how to learn, collaborate and share using blogs, wikis and more as part of everyday learning. I love the work of  Al Upton  and his young ‘mini-legends’ – proving that students are never to young to work in a global online world.

Michael Carr-Gregg urges parents to venture into the online world inhabited by their children and get in touch with their day-to-day lives. He explains what kids get up to, provides guidelines for family internet safety and advises how to minimise the risks without limiting your children’s freedom to learn, explore and communicate online. At $19.95 I consider this a bargain. Better still, buy some copies for the library, so parents can borrow a copy. More information available from Penguin.

I prepared a presentation for the evening, to stimulate discussion and thinking about the issues. Thanks to my (online) colleagues Graham Wegner and Sue Waters, whose earlier work provided a basis for this presentation.

The 21st century educator …. and professional practice

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This is a really nice thought-provoking presentation from Kim Cofino called The 21st Century Educator: Embracing Web 2.0 in your Professional Practice.
I think this presentation is worth highlighting on it’s own.

I won’t be at the conference – but I can almost hear what Kim will be saying about personal learning networks :-) Thanks for sharing Kim!

  • 21st century literacy specialist!

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    I always love reading what Kim Cofino has to say at her blog Always Learning or in her Twitter posts as mscofino…which are regular, and packed with questions and ideas. But what I really love is the concept behind her role at the International School Bangkok in Thailand.

    Kim explains:

    I am the 21st Century Literacy Specialist at the International School Bangkok in Thailand. This position combines my past experiences as a technology facilitator with the wealth of resources available in the library. ISB is actively seeking to build a Learning Hub that successfully blends the traditional role of a library with the requirements of the 21st century global student. My role is to bridge that gap. As the 21st Century Literacy Specialist, my work is focused on helping core subject teachers utilize web 2.0 technologies in the classroom, to create a global and collaborative approach to learning. I enjoy working with my colleagues to design authentic and engaging international projects incorporating social networking, blogs, wikis, and podcasts, and whatever comes next!

    Kim’s been telling us all day on Twitter how she has been finishing off the long haul of working on her conference presentation wiki Developing the Global Student: Practical Ways to Infuse 21st Century Literacy Skills in Your Classroom.

    Naturally when she finally posted the link I had to take a look.

    I think you should take a look too! :-)

    You should also take a look at Kim’s post The Slideshow must go on where she tells you a little about the conferences that these materials have been prepared for.

  • The Connected Library – get one now!

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    judysuzette.jpgEarlier this week, our network of teacher librarians were able to spend the day with one of Australia’s leading school library practitioners. Fabulous Suzette Boyd from Scotch College has been an inspiration to many of us during our careers, keeping us grounded on quality services, imaginative enterprises, exciting initiatives, and most important of all – customer focused!

    Yes, the kids are what it is all about, and Suzette certainly knows how to manage a school library to achieve the best.

    As Victor explained

    Suzette was indeed different. I would have liked to have spent an entire day listening to her recount many of the things which she has tried over the years – her ideas are innovative, creative and above all real-world.

    During the course of our day we looked at Suzette’s key points:

    • building connections and trust with students
    • communicating with and enlisting the support of all users
    • being positive, upbeat and enthusiastic
    • marketing and promoting the library through an extraordinary array of ideas and activities
    • influencing the Principal
    • becoming the cultural and educational hub of the school.

    The best news of all is that Suzette’s inspiration is no longer a secret. She is sharing her vision with us all through her book The Connected Library: A handbook for engaging users.

    John Marsden says

    The Connected Library is a flight manual for librarians

    Marita Thomson says

    Slim enough to be manageable in these days of information overload, I found this book affirmed many of my current practices but more importantly inspired me to reach a bit further. There are first all those things I always meant to do but didn’t quite get to and then the more difficult area of taking a few risks. I think what is obvious or correct or a risk will vary from one library to another, but Suzette’s book is an excellent place to find your next project.

    In recent times librarians in schools have come to be considered technology experts, curriculum leaders, literature gurus, web masters and providers of on-line information and professional development. They are also expected to be human dynamos, with energy to burn, to have a huge capacity to absorb new information, to have the imagination to deliver exciting new programs, whilst at the same time having the ability to maintain an efficient and relevant library service.

    Suzette Boyd believes this is probably still not enough and that the level of engagement with users is the real measure of success!

    This book is good reading and very manageable. Go on, order it today, or borrow a copy. Your local public library will probably buy it if you ask.

    Let me tell you about Ning! and the new bonus!

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    The big news from Ning! is that it is offering Ad-free student networks. This is a real boon.

    I like Ning very much for the robust social networking it provides – it’s excellent for good discussion and group sharing, ideal for new users to social networking, and especially good for specific global projects like the Flat Classroom project, or for your own school-based projects or staff space.

    But I have been avoiding ‘marketing’ it in my schools because of the advertisments.

    No longer!

    Steve Hargadon writes about the new look Ning! – and how current education users can request to have advertising removed. As a member of the FlatClassroom Project, Classroom 2.0, The Global Education Collaborative, Library 2.0, NextGen Teachers, School 2.0, Stop Cyberbullying, Edublogger World, and lots more. I’m not active really, just drop by sometimes – unless the group is project-based such as The Horizon Project and the Flat Classroom Project.classroom-20.jpg

    I especially like the way we can use Ning! to introduce groups of new teachers to the world of robust social networking – sharing information, ideas, videos, movies etc, as well as having a personal space to run a bit of a blog (for those who haven’t got time to ‘go it alone’), a way to discuss and ask questions through the forum….and more!

    Now it’s time for more people to have a go! Go on, start by joining a group – I have found another that needs my attention – Ning in Education! Time for me to schedule a workshop!

    What I would like is a better way of integrating all my groups FaceBook style! API anyone?

  • Ustream.tv

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    ustream.jpgThe twittersphere is full of excitement as more and more ed tech bloggers give UstreamTV a try this week.

    Whether you broadcast live, chat live, or record your show for later, this has some interesting potential for teachers to experiment with in some way. Teachers like Coolcatteacher and Budtheteacher have a Ustream space already.

    A great addition to the professional learning toolkit for global educators.

    A post on Twitter, and there we all were (just before midnight) participating in some cool PD at Where the Dust Settles. Learnt about PollDaddy! Discovered how easy it is to use this tool to effectively share information and have fun!

  • The community will lead – from Stephen Heppell

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    The opportunity to hear Stephen Heppell again in a recent Keynote session was a winner for me (albeit via video)! He has long been a leader of learning, inspiring innovators the world over (including my own Director Greg Whitby) to move forward in response to the urgent needs of 21st century learning. I have had the pleasure of seeing Stephen ‘live’ for a conference Keynote for the International Association of School Librarianship in HongKong back in 2005. A rare treat for those of us from Australia.

    Stephen mentions his mobile phone in this Scottish keynote. I remember spending a pleasant evening at the same IASL conference dinner with him….. and I remember a guy full of fun, and down-to-earth enthusiasm. Stephen used his mobile phone to help me do quick calculations during a fund raising auction at the conference dinner, and generally spent heaps of time talking with us about what he can do and what he will be able to do in the future with his phone! I love listening to Stephen :-)

    Ewan McIntosh alerted us to the keynotes for the Scottish Learning Festival which have been made available now in a version that will play on your video iPod or MP4 player.

    It’s a great way to revisit the rich resource that each keynote address provides. You can right-click (or ctrl-click on a Mac) each of the links below to download these to your computer, and drag them to your iPod or into iTunes:Three of them are of particular interest to me:

    but I want to focus on the last one for now.

    Stephen Heppell explores the consequences of technology and change and reiterates that learning will get better and better, with a transparency in understanding, and with downsizing of schools and schooling. He talks of small schools at the end of each road addressing the personalized learning of students – genuinely responding to what I heard about ‘individuation’ from Yoram Harpaz.

    He explains that the future is ‘massively about teamwork’ and collaboration. It is about stuff that is free, and people reporting, and huge amounts of real-time data helping us make judgments about what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. He asks ‘where are we with real-time data’? What are we doing with our mobile phones? etc. What we need is to allow pupil-centric approaches to learning to take over – technology empowering this all the way.

    For Stephen ‘identity’ and ‘time’ are critical. Real time use of technology is extraordinary and evolving in amazing ways. In this context, doing the job of teaching is spectacularly complex and getting harder every day.One thing that is clear is that Stephen has moved well beyond the notion of system schooling, redesigning schooling, top-down structure etc. He talks about a learning world built from the bottom up.We’re a long way off from what we need – or are we?

    Let Stephen explain.

    Photo: School Bell

  • School leadership – the six secrets of success

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    Michael Fullan provided us with pretty important secrets for leadership :-)

    1. Love your employees as well as your customers – this is essential for productivity.
    2. Connect peers with purpose – this is how you give coherence and cohesiveness – We need direction plus flexibility from the centre. The secret glue of cohesion is peer interaction.
    3. Bullying backfires – identifying ineffectiveness without being punitive or pejorative in your actions.
    4. Learning is the work – be careful – PD is a good way to avoid change! It’s about professional learning not professional development. We shouldn’t learn outside and apply it. It’s the difference between prescription and precision. It doesn’t work to simply make teachers autonomous. Precision means that some things are non-negotiable – and there is no conflict between precision and creativity. It’s the way you gravitate to those things that we know are effective.
    5. Transparency rules – its about results and its about practice.
    6. Systems Learning – using your knowledge while doubting what you know. Using humility while you move forward.

    Photo: Success