Graham Wegner – Open Educator

We have 10,000 netbooks being rolled out in a trial in Victorian state schools. See here for Bill Kerr’s analysis.

We have 200,000 laptops of similar ilk being rolled out by the NSW DET. A spirited debate on this news is currently happening on the Oz-Teachers list (start here) – but at times sniping about operating systems, industry standard applications and local vs system distribution masks the bigger trend occurring here.

And what happens here in South Australia?

Yesterday, the SA Secondary Principals Association revealed computers remained in boxes at some schools because there were not enough funds allocated to install cabling, power points or wireless internet connections needed to run them.

Why isn’t our State Government helping schools out and building on the DER funded computing resources being allocated to schools? Apparently, it is up to individual schools to find their own way. You can criticise the NSW DET and Victorian Ed. Dept for their choice of technology, their contradictory policies around filtering and approach to social media tools but I am quietly wishing that someone here in Flinders Street was thinking forward to the concept of students with their own digital device as an integral part of their classroom.

I know this doesn’t solve the issue of teacher development – how we ensure that laptops/netbooks etc become the new connected exercise book and pencil case for the current generation of students? Tony Searl in a recent comment hints at things to come:

Maybe DET NSW 1:1 could just be the tech tipping point that forces some reluctant hands. If 30 kids show up carrying their weapons of “mass connection” it’ll either end in tears or salutes, the past fence sitting/avoidance will be diminished as an option.

Maybe it won’t just force the teachers to act – maybe education systems will be forced into action of some sort as well. If I’m in an upper primary classroom in five years time and they don’t all have a laptop of some description – well, then there is some massive governmental denial going on.

Live blogged notes – my thoughts in italics.

Changes that technology are bringing to the world is going to affect education as well. Need a personal interaction with new tools before one can implement their use in the classroom – look inwards and become a networked learner. Publishing is the easy put – it’s what happens afterwards that makes the difference.

Story of Laura Stockman  – blog called 25 Days To Make A Difference. 60,000 hits  on her blog – people connected to her passion, community service. Now made a connection to Jenny Luca in Melbourne to raise money for children affected by the Victorian bushfires. Referenced Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody as a great book for illustrating the shifts that are occurring.

Kids  are connecting via phones etc. via their close personal networks firstly  and then connecting via interests.  How do we shift massive numbers of teachers into a new way of thinking with the new technology?

Networks are all around us  – do you have global connections? Yes

Need to learn how to connected to networks. Knowledge is in networks. The network is smarter than the node. No self-directed learning going on in his kids’ lives. Concept of editing as we know it is gone – we need to learn how to edit what we read online.  Literacy is “malleable”. Teach our kids to learn online in safe, effective and ethical ways. Teachers should model their own network literary skills throughout schooling.

Looking at the tools – RSS, blogs, Google reader, search feds, social bookmarking.

Afternoon session – looking at the concept of Connective Writing. How many of us are teaching kids to read and write in a hypertext environment? Put up a blog post from Doug Noon showing ten or more links to other blogs, articles, pdf’s, videos etc. Also looked through the use of diigo to annotate sites – called it “connective reading”.

Talked about fanfiction.net – fans write new chapters for the book – No. 1 is Harry Potter with over 390,000 chapters. Writing does not only occur in text – showed (listened to) Radio WillowWeb. Real writing for real audiences for real puposes. We can write for a global audience.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a pretty low grade live blogger. I run out of steam very quickly and I am a lousy, lousy twitter backchanneler – I don’t think I added anything coherent to the stream of @willrich45 tweets as the day progressed. Maybe I was conscious of my own small presentation coming up after afternoon tea.

Anyway, I think it was interesting that tool wise I didn’t really learn anything new from Will face to face – but that is more an tribute to the actual powerful potential of the same tools he was showcasing (and that I have spent time over the last four years learning to leverage). I think that the day was more geared to educators who are still relatively “green” to Web 2.0 – but don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the day and there was plenty to think about from the challenges Will kept putting out there.

I’m still disappointed about the very small (but loyal) crowd that attended the seminar – sometimes Adelaide does live up to its “hicksville” image. Where were our school leaders and department decision makers who need to hear about this stuff? I suppose I should be glad that when Will went outside for his morning coffee to overlook the Torrens Lake that it actually had water in it.

I had a sick day yesterday. So, after  visiting the doctor and the pharmacy to get some industrial strength antibiotics, I decided to put some time towards preparing for my thirty minute slot during the upcoming Will Richardson day. It’s pretty cool that he’s coming to little old Adelaide and that not only do I get to attend the event and see one of my original Web 2.0 teachers and major early influences (along with Downes and Blackall) present but I get to show one of my own contributions as an “influential South Australian educator” in my use of a wiki as a platform for learning. I hope there’s a big crowd coming because if I’m being chosen as an innovative user of read/write technologies, then we have a long way to go here in South Australia in realising the potential of these tools for our students’ learning, and Will’s insights and influence will be invaluable. I’m hoping I get to meet and talk to him as well – after all, he was the second person to ever comment on my blog and that was a major encouragement when I felt at the time that my attempts at establishing connections were somewhat futile.

So, that will be cool.

It is interesting that I’m going to be giving an overview of the Spin The Globe project because that was another opportunity to work with someone I highly respect for his writing in the edublogosphere in Doug Noon. It’s also about 15 months since any work was done on that wiki so it really feels a bit dated in terms of being innovative. Anyway, I decided to re-listen to the Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast that Doug and I were invited to be a part of so I could isolate some audio quotes from Doug to add to my presentation. I was getting towards the end of it when the host, Paul Allison asked us if we thought that we’d continue to work on the wiki in 2008. Interestingly, we both said yes at the time and that has turned out to be an incorrect prediction. Both of us ended up following other priorities last year and so the wiki stands as a digital artifact of our little experiment in collaboration. Some of Doug’s quotes are extremely insightful and offer the reasons (more apparent now in hindsight) why we both have not returned our students to the project.

“One of the huge ironies of the internet is that I think people are paying attention to stuff far away and ignoring their local area.”

“I saw them starting to team up in the classroom at the same computer and I began thinking about collaboration and how you can’t draw a line around it. If people are collaborating, it might happen at any level of the process.”

“Graham and I were talking about how Alaska and Australia was an awfully big chunk of real estate to bite off for sixth graders and we should’ve have probably, and I told my kids feel free to change references to Alaska to Fairbanks. You know we can narrow it down from there.”

Especially at the age group involved in the primary (elementary) school sector, getting students to look at concepts through local issues, before taking on the global has been my priority since the fading of the Spin The Globe wiki project. I’m not discounting the important of global awareness but one of the outstanding insights both Doug and I observed was how little our classes really knew about their own place in the world.

So, listening to and looking back at something that I’ve been asked to push forward as a “good example” of wiki use has been an interesting exercise, and has made me appreciate Doug’s perspective and wisdom even more. I hope that the educators coming along to see Will (and in a very minor way, myself and the other two South Australian educators also doing 30 minute showcases) walk away with the feeling that read/write tools are a great fit for the progressive pedagogies of Australian educators, rather than feeling that they have to get their kids blogging or get on the lookout for a global wiki partner. The question “What do you want the kids to learn?” has to be front and centre and I sure hope the goal is not just how to use a wiki.

On a slight side track, Wes Fryer’s recent trip to New Zealand and his willingness to share his thinking as he participated in the Learning@School conference confirms what I sort of suspect in terms of a US view of what education is compared to an Antipodean perspective. It was very interesting to read his reactions from Pam Hook’s keynote (does he read Artichoke?) especially this one [Wes' notes were in caps, so he wasn't shouting!]:

THIS IS A REALLY INTERESTING KEYNOTE. THIS DOES NOT HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION. PERHAPS THIS IS GOOD TO HAVE THE FOCUS ON LEARNING RATHER THAN SIMPLY THE USES OF TECHNOLOGY. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING FOR A KEYNOTE, HOWEVER.

From my understanding, Wes would be thought of as a progressive US educator and here he was having a lightbulb moment (correct if I’m wrong and you’re reading, Wes) and Jane Nicholls weighed in with some telling words in the comments of this post:

In New Zealand effective learning and teaching has everything to do with technology integration. Trevor Bond states that an ineffective teacher plus technology equals an expensive ineffective teacher. For technology to be successfully integrated there must first be a solid pedagogical platform. Teachers must be reflective and have a good knowledge of their own teaching philosophy. They need to assess why and how the technology will enhance their classroom practice and they need to know about their students and how different technologies will extend their reach.

She writes more that extends that piece of thinking and then Greg Carroll put in his point of view from which I’ve isolated this poignant quote:

Technology can very easily GET IN THE WAY of effective learning and teaching – and it is the order of those two things that makes all the difference. Learning is about what the learner NEEDS and NOT what the teacher does.

I think this is what is missing from some of the “viral” videos about future learning around the place in that it seems the message is that creativity and collaboration can only be fuelled by technology. That these need to be promoted for classrooms still amazes me – and they are seen by many as new learning for this century amazes me even more so. I can really sense Tom Hoffmann’s long standing and reasonably regular frustration.

So, tying this all back to my wiki reflecting is that Doug and my experiences with Spin The Globe show that collaboration is not a worthwhile goal by itself and that it is pretty easy to be seduced by the techno-possibilities. By all means, if technology provides the best learning experience or is unavoidably entwined, then go for it. But if it isn’t really what the students need, then forget about it and try a different approach.

One of my takeaway moments from Mark Treadwell’s day earlier this week is the point that we (teachers and the curriculum we are employed to deliver) often expect students to take on concepts and skills that they are not developmentally ready for. We are so focussed on doing more sooner that whether the kids are actually ready for it or not is a secondary question.

Here’s an example. Treadwell proposes that in the Year 5 -7 year levels (10 – 13 year olds) that effectively searching the web in the name of “research” is a skill that the majority of these students are not developmentally ready for. Instead, he proposes that smaller groups of pre-picked websites are a more manageable way for students to develop their critical literacy skills. Considering that the vast majority of teachers that I know struggle to use Google in any more than a superficial manner, I’m beginning to warm to this perspective. It would certainly explain why some of the projects that I’ve overseen with students are just mere collections of assembled digital slabs – as Mark pointed out, it makes cut’n'paste the easiest way to achieve results.

I was all for students following their own choices thinking that the web provides for the variety of source material to provide a quality overview of their chosen topic. But the reality is that many students rarely use more than a handful of sites, usually whatever is on top of their initial Google search and the result is regurgitation, not understanding. Plus 30 kids working on their individual themes means no-one else to discuss things with, no-one else to push and challenge understanding or to even ensure that the information passes muster. Just because the talented kids can construct something useful and informative does not mean it is an effective way to equip kids with effective web skills.

But what I’m interested in is your point of view. Is Google a tool to be embraced with students of all ages or do we take a more scaffolded approach to helping their develop their search and evaluation skills? I’m really torn between my instincts that want to empower kids as soon as possible and the other possibility proposed by Mark’s overall picture of the “21st Century Learner” that also reminds us that we don’t just keep shovelling in extra stuff for the students to take on board without working out how to make it manageable or to jettison some practices that just aren’t needed any more. Please, help me to make sense of this. Where do you sit in this picture or am I missing something that is obvious?

Image: http://flickr.com/photos/cayusa/1444806159/

Back in 1999, started to look at concept of Paradigm Shift ; last macro paradigm shift was 500 years ago but we are at the start of a new macro paradigm shift. Mark works mainly with NZ, Ireland and Australia. In 1998, schools were struggling to put technology in but it didn’t really make any difference to teaching and learning. However, technology has improved and costs have dropped. 500 years ago, the printing press was invented and lowered the cost of information, saw the emergence of schools, also sparked the Reformation, allowed people to present new ideas, traders travelling overseas brought back new ideas, some monarchies started to pay people to think.

Robert Branson looked at the paradigms associated with education, wrote paper called “The Upper Limit”, pointed out that testing was about recall. Books were a finite resource so libraries were used to maximise this resource.

Big difference between knowing and understanding.

Internet dramatically lowers the cost yet again of knowledge – will mature in about 14 years (2020). Books were part of a resource scarce-environment, so we moved into teaching thematically which makes the copy / paste methods of “knowing stuff” very accessible and problematic in the internet era, as information is now anything, anywhere and anytime. What do we actually need to know? Curriculum is full of “stuff to be learnt”. Internet offers new efficiencies and gains – it’s now not about our teaching, but their learning. Kids need to leave us as lifelong learners – but one mistake we make is that we presume kids know how to listen and how to think.

Massive shift from the majority service sector to the Creative sector.

Thinking ~ we don’t spend much time being logical, sensible and rational. We deal with people every day in the classroom so it is important to know that everyone has a unique world view. What concepts do we need kids to understand?  In NZ, the concept of concepts of subjects were kept (backlash from parents) and competencies were open for all NZ teachers to contribute their own ideas (ownership).

Concept > Learning Intention > Contexts > Content > Sustainability.

Personalised learning is all about who’s in front of you. How do we get the data to follow the student? NZ uses a LMS (3 vendor options for NZ schools) for 24/7 access via a login and access to updated student data, reducing the need for teacher written reports. Pointed out that with today’s swing back to high stakes testing there seems to be a belief that if something can’t be assessed, it doesn’t tend to be valued in schools. However, we need to explicitly teach CONCEPTS, not focus solely on the content.

The central vision statement in the NZ curriculum is “confident, connected, actively involved lifelong learners”.

Inquiry Learning – Mark demonstrated how inquiry is broken into a developmental process appropriate to specific age levels. He gave an example of kindergartens using mobile phones to pixt images to their profile on the LMS, the parents then get a txt message to inform them that their child’s profile has been updated. Interestingly, Mark’s model does not have the students searching the internet as teachers handpick sites for student use, in order to build up critical literacy, teachers need to review pre-chosen resources.

Final points re: inquiry according to Mark:

• the process is the most important component
• keep building on throughout the years in school
• very social process, technological process
• be aware of the developmental process of the kids – if you are running around too much, then what you are doing isn’t really working.

FOOTNOTE: After stirring the pot with a few staff members re: the limited future of the book, I then bought my own copy of “Whatever” from Mark. Yeah, yeah, call me a hypocrite. I’ve been called worse.

The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has decided that in this time of financial uncertainty that stimulus money should be spent – and spent rather quickly. Although I’m not sure that improving schools was not the motivation, no one I know is complaining that we are the beneficiaries of some major spending for … well, the first time I can remember in my teaching career. Mainly primary schools are the recipients of the BER money and I’m in the unusual but possibly not unique position of having a say and seeing how two schools address this opportunity. My own school (where I work) qualifies for $3 million for a major project and the school where my kids go will have a $2.5 million windfall.

An APPA letter emailed out to schools today reveals the priority the government has for this “revolution”:

The Commonwealth has clearly identified priorities.  They are:
1)    Libraries.
2)    Multipurpose halls (could be large covered areas, or have a capacity for sport or performing arts).
3)    Classroom block / replacement of demountables.
4)    Refurbishment of hall/library/classroom block building or another building.
5)    If school has all of the above, negotiations may include early childhood centres but they must be an integrated part of a primary school and childcare must not be a major part of the role.

But as usual, there are catches because the PM wants all of this to stimulate the economy now, speed is of the essence. Decisions about what schools will want need to be made by mid-March with the first priority choice projects starting constrcution by mid-year. To speed things along, schools have been given plans and details of recent pre-existing buildings with the theory that these will need the minimum of planning approvals and can be partially pre-fabricated en masse. So if a school in South Australia wants a new Resource Centre / Library, there is a choice to be made – choice A or choice B, photos from existing DECS sites and plans on CD-ROM. But as my principal points out, you can do what you like with the interior so the lack of choice for the exterior isn’t such a big deal. What is a big deal is the opportunity to get a major building project done in a comparatively short timeframe with money available that I’ve not seen at any stage in my teaching career. So principals are canvassing staff and parents, attending roadshow events – our premier Mike Rann called a day event at the Adelaide Convention Centre and invited principals and Governing Council reps to unveil all of this.

I actually get to have my say in two venues – one as a staff member at the school of my employment and as a Governing Council member at my children’s school. I fired off my opinion to my kids’ principal and fellow GC members. This also represents one of the only chance for schools to get rid of those dreadful portable buildings that seem to plague so many sites in this state – miss the boat on this one and if a school goes to the state government at a future time to talk about replacing these furnace/freezer boxes (depending on the season) that I currently teach in, they’ll be saying, “You had your chance with the BER money.” I’d love to see a wireless “21st Century style” Resource Centre at both schools that I have close links to – and the long term pipe dreams can actually become a reality within the next three years in the schools can look past the compromises that need to be brokered. Still, unless you are a well financed private school (and they get their cut of the stimulus money but don’t get me started on that) then compromising on the ideal is something public educators are already well used to.

Although I didn’t make the effort to blog about this last year, going to an all day event with Mark Treadwell (sponsored by ACEL) was an excellent learning opportunity. Mark describes himself as a travelling scholar and his session focussed on explaining much of the research and concepts of his book “Whatever!” retitled to “School v2.0” for the Australian market. My principal, Ann and I went along knowing not much than his book title expecting that it might have been about Web 2.0 tools in education but we were pleasantly wrong. Instead Mark gave us a big picture of what he refers to as the replacement for the 400 year old Book Based Paradigm, the Internet Based Paradigm. He used his experiences in the New Zealand education sector to talk through the challenges faced by schools today and how NZ has sought to meet these challenges. Of course, the government has changed hands since his 2008 visit and now, so the established direction and priorities of the MOE might have changed course somewhat.

Anyway, we were sufficiently impressed by Mark’s work and both Ann and I agreed that his message was one that all of our teachers needed to hear. The phrase 21st Century Learning gets bandied around a lot in education circles but Mark Treadwell’s overall synthesis in both his presentation and book is the most complete and defined that I’ve come across. So, Ann asked him at the end of his session when he was next due through our neck of the woods and secured his services for a staff PD day. That happens next Monday in conjunction with three other schools. I’ve been reading a few of the chapters from his book in preparation and phrased up a number of focus questions for our staff to consider and respond to during the day.

• What are signs in our work life that the Internet Paradigm is having an effect ?
• What are some practices in our schools that are decreasing in value because of the internet?
• What challenges does all of this present to our school?
• What personal challenges does all of this present to you?

Mark Treadwell has a number of comprehensive websites with a lot of supporting materials for his book. I know he’s not the only visionary promoting and pushing for meaningful change to the education system (although he did mention that he despairs at the prospect of change at the university level where practices are even more entrenched than in primary and secondary schools) but if we are looking for relevant possible courses for action here in South Australia, then the New Zealand experience is far closer to us in school culture and values than other national change initiatives. If we are to believe those nation education ranking systems that regularly place Finland in the number one spot, then us Aussies in fifth spot are better to take our lead from the nearest competitor in fourth spot, the near neighbours in NZ rather than take advice from someone like Joel Klein from another country back in about twelfth spot.

At the start of a new school year I like to recall a key phrase my friend and team teaching partner of eight years, Lindsay used to say as we got our middle school programs up and running. “Make haste slowly”, was his reminder that in a system that annually reconfigures and juggles pre-adolescent kids into groups of thirty, taking the time to let them settle as a new group, establish routines and expectations is more important than launching head first into meeting explicit curriculum goals. Of course, an innovative teacher can subtly combine the two elements but it’s a big mistake to think that getting a spelling program or unit of mathematics started is a bigger priority than working on the classroom agreement, personal goal setting for the year and generally scoping out the social and learning dynamics of the new classroom.

So, after Parent/Teacher interviews, helping to set up two days on student leadership, type up a class newsletter, initial testing, establishing class meeting procedures, negotiating an Agreement about class rules and formulating a class vision and setting up numerous other little tasks that add up to a chunk of time, I sincerely hope that I don’t continue to work at this pace for the remainder of 2009. It’s one thing to be working hard and feeling ke you’re getting somewhere towards the top of the pile but when every piece of “spare time” goes towards this constant state of re-invention instead of watching the occasional television program (I did get to see the first episode of Underbelly on Friday after recording it on Monday), reading a book (Here Comes Everybody would be better titled Here Comes Nobody as it languishes on the bedside table) or even responding to some of my favourite edubloggers. As I remarked to my tandem teaching partner, Kim and next door co-planning buddy, Maria, “I hope we find some sort of rhythm soon or we’re gonna be stuffed by Easter.”

Anyway, I’d better get ready for my CEGSA meeting which will be followed by an appearance at my school’s Governing Council’s AGM. Although after one meeting after school and a quick dash to my youngest son’s school to meet his teacher, I’m not sure when this slowdown is going to occur!

P.S. Turns out my CEGSA meeting is not for another week. Shame I didn’t work this out earlier – building Speed Racer Lego vehicles with my youngest would have been a more enjoyable option.

Well, we’ve started back at school this week and I have to admit, everything feels like a continuation from last year and across the state, the basic way school gets done will be pretty much the same way it’s been done for quite a while now. The changes at our school are subtle and not all that obvious to the casual observer but there are tell tale signs on the new teachers’ faces as they suffer information overload about inquiry learning, interactive whiteboards, co-planning and You Can Do It. I must admit that I enjoy the fact that we are a school pushing forward to improve what we offer our students but it can be a bit of a culture shock for the newcomers from less frantic settings.

And if, as some prominent edubloggers propose, we need a learning revolution it will come as a complete surprise for many of those schools and educators. When most Aussie teachers hear the word “revolution” associated with education, they think of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Digital Education Revolution. With the unfortunate acronym of DER and plenty of scepticism about the actual vision and subsequent implementation, the whole idea of “revolution” has lost most of its punch down under. Then when our Federal Education Minister starts looking back over her shoulder for ways to improve the Australian education system by inviting controversial New Yorker Joel Klein to provide advice on how to move our schools forward, then the “revolution” terminology starts to look somewhat farcical.

The internet hasn’t transformed Australian education – yet. In general, it hasn’t transformed Australian educators either but that’s not to say it isn’t possible. But change is slowly happening with the few of us pushing the web as a participatory learning platform tending to be steady small scale influencers rather than being Che Guervera-like figures.  After all, no-one wants to get fired. It’s much more evolutionary than anything else.

So, I find phrases like “I’m Here For The Learning Evolution” to be mildly irritating. Much of the conversation surrounding this tends to focus on the deficiencies of one country’s education system (which ironically us Aussies consider for improvements to our system!) and when I look at how few K-12 educators are even using the web for their own learning, how can they even get their unknowing colleagues on board for a people’s revolution they don’t even know exists?

In 2009, I’ll just keep evolving my practice and do my best to help my disconnected colleagues to plug into the potential. Sorry, Wes. Count me out.

I’ve really enjoyed this holiday break, spending as much time as possible with my wife and sons. We’ve been to the beach, seen some movies, bought icecream, played board games, shopped for DS game bargains and the time has just been a fantastic time out after the intensity of the 2008 school year. But six weeks zips by pretty fast and although I’ve tried to keep tabs on my personal learning, there have been evenings where I’ve veged out and watched a DVD series with my wife or gone and had a hour or so on the Playstation. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m involved in a couple of PLP cohorts as an “Expert Voice” (OK, you can stop laughing now) I may have been happy to put the PLN on hold. After all, it is always there, a living stream of information and people that is constantly interconnecting and growing.

At the moment, I have one minor project on the go and that is preparing a presentation I’ve been asked to do on Web 2.0 Tools In The Classroom for a group of schools next Thursday afternoon. The interesting thing about this particular group of educators is that their schools will combine in the near future to become one of the new “superschools” planned by our State Government. This day is part of their moving forward, becoming one cohesive group with a shared concept of what their new school will be like. Most of the sites are based in low  income, high unemployment suburbs and the new school is supposed to be an improved opportunity for education not possible with the current situation of smaller schools. The invited speakers are all presenting about the envisioned future of South Australian education, including a link up to Dan Buckley, UK personalised learning expert. I’ve been given an afternoon slot of 45 minutes, with a small audience of primary and middle school teachers who presumably are new to the idea of using social media tools in the classroom. That’s been fun but hard work to do because it feels like going over old ground all the time – blogs, wikis, social networking, 21st century learning, digital footprint, blah blah bah – but I have to remember that the vast majority of this audience will only have a beginner’s perspective and won’t have all of the reference points (Friedman’s The World Is Flat, anyone?) that have helped me to become very comfortable in this space as a learner and (in my opinion) a reasonably astute judge of possibilities in the classroom. I’ll post the presentation here with audio if I remember and any other links of relevance. Like I said, for many of you who I connect with on a regular (or even irregular basis) this will be old ground. And I just might refer anyone from that presentation audience over to Jennifer Jones’ Onramp series which looks fantastic for beginners and experienced educators online and will deliver key concepts and resources in a more digestible fashion than my 45 minute sprint.

I hope to finish that task by the end of this week and then I’ll start thinking about the 2009 school year. I have really given my brain a big holiday in this area and I would say outright that I do not really know how or what I will teach this year. I start another three year appointment as Coordinator with an impressive title of Teaching & Learning Technologies Coordinator. Our DECS ICT grant has helped to provide for an additional day out of the classroom and I’m excited about that time being spent working directly with teachers, their students and our technology. But that means I am only in the classroom for three days out of the five and sharing a classroom with a tandem partner is always an exercise in compromise. So there is no point getting too carried away with plans for say a mathematics or reading program when I still need to meet with Kim (who doesn’t really know what she is in for) and carve up our collective responsibilities management and curriculum wise. Add in the fact that with inquiry learning units need to be co-planned with Maria next door, it is easy to see that this is where experience can be beneficial in working quickly and efficiently to get a new classroom off to a successful, focussed start. I have a composite class of Year 6/7 this year with ten students from 2008 carrying on from Year 6 to Year 7 in 2009. That is always a plus in my book as these kids tend to make the core of student leadership within the classroom community, setting a positive atmosphere where kids can take risks and flourish.

I think that I have operated this way for most of my classroom career, always in a state of constant re-invention. Resources, printed or digital, tend to be rewritten or edited as units of work are never the same. I always maintain that the day I can’t be bothered doing something fresh and new with my class (very occasional and exceptional times of pressure and constraints excepted), it will be time to give up teaching. We work in a system that grants a lot of creative freedom to teachers in curriculum interpretation – if the profession does not embrace that as a strength, it will be seen by our critics as a weakness to be “cured.” Over the next few weeks I’ll post a few more times about this preparation process and identify a few goals for my year ahead. I’ll also try to share more the resources I create along the way for others to remix and adapt. But for now, this post will help get the ball rolling in the right direction.