Catch the Wave

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.

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.

I flew to Nelson last week for the Lower North Island and Top of the South ICT PD Clusters’ Regional Meeting last week. You big cities types don’t know what it’s like for us people in the provinces! Getting up at 5 a.m to catch a flight in a pencil thin plane to Wellington and then dashing from Gate 5 (skinny provincial planes) to Gate 12 (fat city planes.) Hmm, maybe there’s some sort of symbolism there. And it wasn’t really a dash, more of a brisk walk.
The 2 days were really good. The best parts were probably the tour around 3 local schools on the second day (lots of great teaching ideas), the chance to talk to others doing a similar job and meeting Rachel Boyd and Allanah King in RL.  Rachel  has put some great photos from the tour on a Flickr site. Thanks Rachel, they’re really worth looking at.

Tags: Nelson, New Zealand, planes, teaching ideas, photos

Well, our ICT Cluster Celebration Day is all done and dusted. When you plan and prepare for an event involving a large group of people you keep hoping that you haven’t forgotten anything and that other people with key roles haven’t either. It was important for me that the day should be entertaining and enjoyable. And getting some new ideas would be great as well.

Several schools put lots of organisation, creativity and variety into their presentation. They got all their teachers involved and really enjoyed the excitement of planning and working together. Thought had been put into the presentation format and advanced ICT skills were evident. The three year ICT journey was shared with variety and lots of humour. There are a lot of clever teachers out there!

The lucky number -mystery prize draws were fun. Amongst the 24 mystery prizes were two 1GB pen drives, an All Blacks backpack and pillowcase, a popcorn maker, wine and lots of other prizes, which although of lower value, were still worth winning.

People enjoy quizzes, so everyone enjoyed our ICT Quiz. About a quarter of the teachers got all the answers correct. Three people from a ‘lucky dip draw’ received prizes.

It’s a truth that people are motivated to perform when they need to meet certain expectations and they know they will be held accountable. At times pride, self belief and personal goals prompt us to motivate ourselves. Sometimes charasmatic leadership is the key. However, perhaps the fun of belonging to a group, having confidence in your ability to contribute something special and unique and wanting everyone to know about it is the most powerful motivator of all!

technorati tags:ICT, celebration, education, motivation, New_Zealand, schools, teaching

I’m starting to wonder if the Internet isn’t really just a giant revolving door. If you stay on the thing for long enough you end up back where you started, doing things you’ve done before, but in a slicker, prettier and easier way. Web 2.0. gives me a feeling of deja vu!
As I message, chat, Skype, blog, comment and podcast, I get that ‘I’ve done this before’ feeling.

In the early ’90s I found the Internet. It was a wonderful global village where people used bulletin boards, iphone (way before Apple claimed exclusive rights to the letter ‘i’), webcams, CmeCu and Internet Relay Chat to communicate with each other. At first we used nicknames, for we feared the dark and evil lurkers. However, our unscathed survival gave us confidence and chatroom friends met in RL at IRC parties.

The invasion of commercialism changed things for a while. The global village grew to become a massive city and individuals got lost in the dotcom boom. Groups dispersed to experience the many online attractions and activities. The Internet took control.

Web 2.0 has brought some of the power back to the people. Improvements in technology and social software show how we are adapting to an online environment. Now millions have blogs and contribute to wikis. How much more confident we are! A conference party is where we meet in RL. And the revolving door has swung around again. Deja vu.

technorati tags:Internet, Web2.0, Deja_vu, Web, global_village, communication

Krusty the Clown: So he’s proactive, huh?
Lindsey Naegle: Oh, God, yes. We’re talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.
George Meyer: Excuse me, but proactive and paradigm?
Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?
[backpedaling] Not that I’m accusing you of anything like that. [pause]
I’m fired, aren’t I?

— The Simpsons — “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show”

According to Jane Gilbert (‘Catchingthe Knowledge Wave’) a significant paradigm shift will be required for schools to move from industrial age thinking to knowledge age thinking. In summary she writes - ‘The knowledge society is an idea that is widely discussed, but not well understood. Knowledge is developing a new meaning, one that is quite different to the one our schools were built on. Because of this, knowledge society developments are a major challenge for our schools. We cannot address this challenge by adding more ideas to our existing structures. We need a completely new framework – one that takes account of knowledge’s new meaning, but also gives everyone an equal opportunity to succeed.’

Exactly what a paradigm? And how is our education paradigm shifting?
‘A paradigm is a set of rules and regulations (written or unwritten) that does two things: 1) it establishes or defines boundaries; and 2) it tells you how to behave inside the boundaries in order to be successful”. (Joel Arthur Barker) ” A shared set of assumptions.’
‘A paradigm shift is as a change from one way of thinking to another. It’s a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but is driven by agents of change.’

This paradigm shift is going to be tough going if Mark Treadwell’s diagram is anything to go by! It’s obviously not a job for the weak, lazy or faint-hearted. In a 2001 Leading-Learning newsletter titled ‘The knowledge Wave - or was it a ripple?, Bruce Hammonds and Wayne Morris conclude with:
‘It seems we do have some of the answers of how to create our own ‘knowledge wave’ but do we have the wit, imagination, leadership and courage to do so. Not so far.’

So how far have things shifted in 5 years? How well is the need for the shift understood? And who and what are the agents of change? Response to ‘The New Zealand Curriculum - Draft for consultation‘ seems impressive and we don’t have long to wait to see the end result - ‘It is proposed that the official New Zealand Curriculum (English medium) will be released to schools in September/October 2007 and implemented in 2009.’

Will it just be better (and thinner) than the present curriculum, or represent a true paradigm shift?

technorati tags:education, New_Zealand, paradigm, change, proactive, curriculum, knowledge_wave, teaching, Jane_Gilbert, leadership

Lately I’ve been looking at people’s videos and photos on YouTube and Flickr about their holidays in New Zealand. Now I see my country through new eyes! And I’ve found a whole new thing to share - photos about the places I visit. And people actually do view some of my photos! Amazing. Maybe YouTube and Flickr are the 21st Century version of the ‘My Trip’ slide evening.

I have just got back from Te Kuiti, where I was working with teachers at the Waitomo ICT Cluster Teacher Only Day. The area is really beautiful and my first sight of the town was from the top of a hill.

There were about 70 teachers at Te Kuiti Primary School to learn more about Inquiry Learning as two of the Waitomo ICT Cluster goals for the year are:
• To explore values and beliefs about learning through critical reflection of current practice and experimentation with a range of strategies, to develop a school wide vision for learning
• To explore and develop an inquiry approach to learning in classrooms that reflects the values and beliefs
Mike Whiteman, the Waitomo Cluster Facilitator filmed the presentations, which was a new experience for me. It’s not often that we get an opportunity to see ourselves as others see us, and I’ll probably need a wine or two!

After the morning presentations the teachers of each school got together to reflect and discuss their visions for their school. I enjoyed the day. The teachers were great to work with! They were really enthusiastic and ready to go with new teaching ideas.

In the last week of term I can have a grin and think that just maybe next week I can read something other than the latest and/or greatest in education and ICT … or should I say as well as!  This billboard is in the London underground.