Catch the Wave

I read an interesting article on the Dominion Post website today. With the subtitle ‘Scientists say tech savvy are set to take over’, its about the way the Internet is altering our brains and the way we think. “Gary Small, a neuroscientist at UCLA in California who specialises in brain function, has found through studies that Internet searching and text messaging has made brains more adept at filtering information and making snap decisions.” He argues that “the people who will come out on top in the next generation will be those with a mixture of technological and social skills.” What are your thoughts about the article and what are the messages here for 21st century educators?

Recently I attended the uLearn Education Conference in Christchurch, which is a very beautiful city in the South Island of New Zealand. I took this photo from my hotel window.

The theme of the conference was 21st century technologies and how they allow us to voice our opinion, to make a difference, to connect, collaborate, network and learn. ‘The opportunities go far beyond the simple ability to publish to the web, far beyond the simple use of tools. They revolve around connecting, forming groups, creating personal classrooms and networks.’ (Will Richardson)

Here’s something to have fun with! I made this poster online using ‘Wordle’ www.wordle.net The number of times you write a word dictates its size in relation to the other words – however the word will only appear once.

To save it as a .jpg I took a screen shot (using the PRTSC key), pasted it into Photo Filtre and then cropped and saved it. Make sure you change the file type to .jpg

Sandy and her Year 5 and 6 students at Ohope Beach School have made this Habits of Mind Poster on a display board in their classroom. This is next to the mat for handy reference and reminders. Its a great way for students to learn about the Habits of Mind and how they weave together to form a set of successful learning and living behaviours.
Do you like this idea? Use it yourself!

Read this article on the Stuff (Dominion Post) website about the Gorillapod camera tripod. It sounds wonderful! I want one!

I’ve been travelling around a bit lately.  First came the Nelson ICTPD Conference, then last week I spent 2 days in Palmerston North with 22 school leaders from the eBest ICT Cluster.  Today I was in Tauranga at the Bay of Plenty ICT Clusters home group meeting.   In fact the last six years has been like this for me – lots of meetings, conferences and workshops.  Lots of professional development and learning.  Lots of new ideas and skills.  Change has been constant, necessary and stimulating.  Why do some teachers resist it?   There are times I’ve gone from student (with the Internet as my teacher), to teacher in a matter of days.   Perhaps other ICT Facilitators can relate to this.

ICT Clusters have had an impact on New Zealand education.  They can take a lot (if not all) of the credit for the education renaissance that has has happened during the last six years.  And in true Kiwi style, while we all have a vision and goals, there is no ‘how to ‘, ‘what to’, or ‘when to’ blueprint provided.  And yet we make a real difference – talking to a teacher who hasn’t been in an ICT cluster will prove that.

I’ve been with the eBest ICT Cluster in Whakatane, New Zealand for four months now. Our main cluster goal for 2008 is to develop a thinking programme for each school that reflects the needs of the 21^st century learner. Each term we have a whole day ‘Leaders Think Tank’ and an ‘ICT Lead Teachers Workshop’. This year we are looking at a variety of thinking strategies and ways to implement them in daily classroom practice.

The eBest ICT Cluster website is our sharing and collaborating environment and contributes to our development as a learning community. Here, teachers share their planning and resources and the files reflect the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Thinkers keys and Habits of Mind in their teaching practice.
The website URL is www.ebest.co.nz

You don’t need to be a member to use the site and the resources are available for everyone to download free. If you find the resources useful, please add a short post to the eBest Blog. I’d love to hear what you think of the website.

The online world is absolutely enormous now and I think I tap in to only a very small part of it. Some days I hear about something that’s been around for a while and I wonder how I didn’t know about it when other people did. That’s part of what makes the Internet so much fun. (What will I learn today? How did they do that? How could I use this? How can I find out about …?) The availability and depth of online resources and opportunities are amazing. And we are increasingly expecting other people to have the personal ability and tech capability to access these resources as well. We refer to website, online forms and are using the Internet for communication, collaboration and problem solving.

For some time now I’ve being telling people that using the Internet is making me more intelligent … sometimes they laugh, but I’m serious. So it was interesting to read an article titled ‘The World is getting Smarter’ which mentions ‘The Flynn Effect’. Your IQ is likely to be higher than those of your parents, and your children’s IQs is likely to be higher than yours.
“Our advantage over our ancestors is relatively uniform at all ages from the cradle to the grave,” says Flynn.
Wikipedia gives a possible explanation – ‘The general environment is today much more complex and stimulating. One of the most striking 20th-century change in the human intellectual environment has come from the increase in exposure to many types of visual media. From pictures on the wall to movies to television to video games to computers, each successive generation has been exposed to far richer optical displays than the one before and may have become more adept at visual analysis.’
Flynn’s thesis shows that whole societies can get better at thinking if they’re given the right environment. ‘The mind is supple and the Flynn effect shows that what we value gets stronger.’ This has huge implications for education … and never more so than now.

Lately I’ve been pretty much living on/in my laptop. This is not really a bad thing … athough I did take a long walk yesterday to give my eyes something in the distance to focus on.

I got a new Toshiba Tela laptop in February and love the faster speed of 2 gb of Ram. The only annoying thing is the volume icon/indicator which pops up on the screen every time I brush the volume wheel (which is on the front.) If anyone knows how to stop this happening, please let me know.   And no, I don ‘t think a sticking plaster is really a long term solution!

I’ve been playing with Marvin. While I think it’s clever and cute, I’m not yet a convert to the avatar craze, so I can’t see me using it much. I’m puzzled about why the software was so ‘high profile’ of at the Learning@School Conference. Is there a need to constantly have new things? Do education conferences depend on ‘new’ for their existence? I suppose we wouldn’t keep going to hear the same stuff over again! There is also the thought that Marvin used L@S for their New Zealand launch and paid the organisers for the opportunity. I spent time on the Marvin website trying to add some more understanding. Apart from learning more about Aboriginal health issues, I’m really none the wiser.

In my Internet wanderings, I discovered that Russell Street School in Palmerston North has changed their website to a blog. It contains all the features and pages of the original site, but allows for easy posts by the principal and teachers, photos, media and comments from parents. I think it’s brilliant and I’ll be trying to convince all the schools I work with to do this too. Best of all, the eBest ICT Cluster is taking a group of 19 leaders and teachers down to Palmerston North at the end of May to visit 3 schools – including Russell Street.

An analogy can be made between being involved in a three year ICT Contract and with sponsoring a child through World Vision. When sponsoring a child, not only does the child benefit, but also his whole village. Similarly, an ICT cluster sets about developing and supporting teacher and student use of ICTs for learning and also their school’s awareness of the necessary environment for success. While an ICT cluster is certainly about developing individual teachers ICT skills and knowledge of 21Century best practice pedagogy, it is more importantly about developing each of its schools as a learning community.
The Wanganui ICT Cluster has ended it’s three year journey. The many days spent buying goats, planting crops and digging wells are over. Teachers have many new skills, strategies and understandings. Creative waters have start to flow. Hopefully their journey has planted the seeds for many future rich harvests and continued learning prosperity.