Archive for the 'Staff Training' Category

Page 3 of 4

PLOTPD Training Review

Published on October 27, 2006 in Personal Reflections and Staff Training. 0 Comments

I’ve just spent the last three days at PLOTPD training with my principal ond our two new Assistant Principals for 2007. PLOT stands for Professional Learning Online Tool which lead some to the incorrect assumption that it was about technology. No, it wasn’t and it may be a positive sign for the future that the technological aspect is embedded into the broader topic of leadership. I heard references to Marc Prensky, Ian Dukes, Daniel Pink and Thomas Friedman all in the context of our students’ needs as 21st Century learners. There is a website however, called the PLOT tool, accessible by subscription but apart from perusing that as team, the three days were mainly engaged in conversation and discussion. PLOT training is capably led by David Anderson and Joan Dalton who structured a wide range of hands on activities and discussions that had everyone mixing and interacting regardless of their school position. This training is aimed at school leadership teams interested in establishing “communities of learning” within their own staff and school but the eight or so schools represented had their agendas to run as well. Ours was definitely an opportunity to meet together as a 2007 leadership team for the first time, get to know each other, establish some agreement about how to operate as a cohesive team and be “on the same page.” It actually took until Monday afternoon before we even spent any time together because we were paired and then grouped semi-randomly in a series of activities. One activity had two of us interviewing each other about our respective schools on the topics of School Strengths, School Challenges and School Priorities. There was one other but I didn’t take notes in the way I normally would in regular “transmission mode” training.Another activity on the second day had us matched up with new people again from other sites and this time, we shared significant changes during our lifetime. This sparked an interesting discussion amongst the group with three members talking about their perceived drop in social and educational standards, things were better in the past, kids of today are only self interested etc. I begged to differ without much success. I pointed out that the current generation are the most surveilled ever, parents tend to be on an overprotective high and that things weren’t always so rosy in the past. When someone bemoaned the breakdown of the family unit, my mind wondered how many abused wives and children suffered under the moral silence of the day and passed these destructive behaviours onto the next generation. There was also extended conversation along the lines of, “Students of today expect everything to be fun. They have to learn that not all of education can be fun. Most of it has to be hard work because that’s what life is like.”
I thought to myself that wasn’t the case at all. I think students expect purpose and engagement as opposed to fun and it’s not unreasonable for them to have that. I’d be worried that unimaginative or lazy teaching could easily hide behind such a philosophy or outlook. Anyway, the follow on to this discussion was the identifying of qualities, skills and aptitudes needed for the kids in our schools to succeed. Even my colleagues from my group helped to generate words like – flexible, can work in a team, savvy – even though the choice of self-discipline came across to me like veiled criticism of today’s kids.

Anyway, there were segments dealing with “tough conversations”, norms and values with useful metaphors and anecdotes skillfully scattered throughout. David and Joan are extremely skillful facilitators and although I’ve run out of steam reflecting on these three days, there are many useful strategies, structures and protocols that I have gained and can use to improve my raw and emerging leadership skills.

Research has consistently shown that all the things that schools can control, it is the quality of pedagogy that most directly and most powerfully affects the quality of learning outcomes that students demonstrate.
QUALITY TEACHING IN NSW PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 2003

Losing Traction

Published on October 11, 2006 in Staff Training and Web 2.0. 2 Comments

Maybe in order for the Web 2.0 in Education tipping point to happen, those of us at the sparsely populated end need to jump up and down a bit to get the platform moving!

I just found out that a workshop I had planned and offered for teachers here in Adelaide has been cancelled due to a lack of numbers. Whether that is due to timing, lack of interest or whatever, it is a little bit disappointing from my point of view. The momentum I thought might have been there after the Web2 Showcase hasn’t happened although all is not lost – hopefully, Al‘s workshop will still have a good attendance – but my efforts at getting more local teachers on board and blogging has lost some of its traction.

All is not lost however and this little setback may be great fodder for my next venture as part of the K-12 Online Conference. I sent in a submission at the end of last month for the strand of Overcoming Obstacles and received an e-mail the other night from Wesley Fryer confirming that my online presentation/workshop titled “No Teacher Left Behind – The Urgency Of Web 2.0″ had been accepted. I’m not an expert but I feel that it was a topic worth exploring and I could certainly leverage my Learning Network to put together a resource that might help to provide a way forward and to shed some more light on the many obstacles that schools and educators face when using Web 2.0 tools for learning. I’ve set up a wiki (almost standard procedure these days!) to house my stuff and anyone can check it out and add to it (if you are a wikispaces member) or email me any ideas and links that you think might fit in with my theme.

The changing information landscape of the 21st Century demands that our students develop new skills of information literacy and become knowledge producers as an integral component of their learning. But what of the professionals charged with these students’ education? Can they be convinced of the need for personal change to keep pace with their students’ world? Are they even aware of the exponential changes taking place? How would they get started in their classrooms?

This online presentation will explore some of the barriers faced by educators seeking to improve and influence their colleagues’ perceptions of the internet, and Web 2.0 in particular, as a vehicle for learning. It will pull together various resources that could be useful as starting points for discussion and explore some of the concerns and trepidations of average teachers struggling already with a heavy workload. This presentation will use this wiki as its base and seek to leverage the online Conference participants to help create some possible answers and resources for those of us who recognize the need for our colleagues to be at our sides, providing best practice for our digital age students.

I suppose I now have some time to spend at the K-12 and I don’t have to postpone my double booked doctor’s appointment. Oh, and I can make that council meeting at my son’s primary school….

Review And Reflect – Web2Showcase

Published on September 21, 2006 in Staff Training and Web 2.0. 3 Comments

I have to agree with Mike. It was great to co-present tonight with such passionate educators eager to open up their experience and expertise to the wider educational community. This was to a f2f audience of nearly 60 and out to 9 venues via Centra. Now I reckon that doing demonstrations of Web 2.0/social software/ read/write web stuff is very hard to do via the videoconferencing medium and I think that being conscious of catering for a group of people I couldn’t see interfered with my presentation which I thought was below my own expectations. Luckily, everyone else was brilliant and covered for my not showing how to edit a wiki (conscious that the Centra audience wouldn’t see) and not being able to retrieve my links for StartPages from my wiki when I needed to. As always, a workaround is always necessary but it wasn’t until I was enthralled by Mike’s excellent Mashup that what I already knew dawned on me. If I can’t access a link from a previously identified source that I’ve set up, then my content is re-packaged and re-distributed via RSS in a number of ways that I could have accessed more easily than typing in the URL by hand!! I needed to run my StartPage section from my links page on my wiki but it looked like wikispaces decided to go down right at that moment. (I still maintain that using Internet Explorer was a big factor. Go Firefox! Go Flock!) So, if I was confronted by that in the future, I could have gone straight to my blog or my Bloglines or my PageFlakes feed for my blog and grabbed the links from my StartPages review or gone to Mike’s Bloglines feed for my wiki RSS feed.

Anyway, I wasn’t sure what to make of the audience response to our presentation. There was quite a bit of joviality and smiles amongst the presenters but the audience was very serious – they were either concentrating hard or concerned about what it all means for them. Love some feedback from anyone who was in the audience – what did you make of it all?

Flickr Image – Mike’s view of Vonnie, Al and I. 

Web 2.0 Showcase Resources Ready To Roll

Published on September 20, 2006 in Staff Training and Web 2.0. 1 Comment

Just spent tonight putting the finishing touches on two goes at 15 minutes of fame at the Web 2.0 Showcase at TSOF tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got my links ready on my personal wiki and yesterday I had the brainwave of putting together a StartPage for the event that could showcase a variety of the presenters’ web ventures to show how easy it is have fed into one spot. The result – the Web2Showcase PageFlakes page, made public for your viewing pleasure. The idea is that after my initial splurge on wikis, I’ll use the free wireless at TSOF to add any referenced resources to the page to show at the end of my StartPages session. I’ve got vonnie’s del.cio.us feeding in, Mike Seyfang’s youtube masterpieces, blogs from all the presenters and a section showing some of the less serious flakes developed by the PageFlakes community – i.e. a daily George Bush quote, an ESPN feed and my own del.icio.us tagcloud.

Fingers crossed.

Finally, A Conference I Can Get To…

Published on September 19, 2006 in Future Directions and Staff Training. 0 Comments

My sinuses have been playing up, and I’m currently suffering the worst hayfever since the early nineties. Back then, I was teaching in Port Augusta, gateway to the Outback and from late winter the dry northerlies would bring down the red dust from the direction of Woomera and beyond. Moving back to Adelaide and a milder (and less dust laden) climate has seen things settle down in my nasal regions over the past decade but the record dry here in South Australia has my nose, eyes and throat in a time warp.

So, I’m wondering if the cooler New Zealand weather would be kinder to my current state of health. Kicking back with the likes of Leigh, Alex, Stephen, Jo Kay and even Artichoke at the amazing The Future of Learning in a Networked World travelling open space conference would be pretty good. In my conversation with Alex the other evening, he described the whole event as “lo-fi” – in a good way. If I could somehow put my current life on pause, then this would be a great event to attend. The line up of thinkers and e-learning experts in tow is phenomenal – just check out the list on the right hand side of the official blog. Leigh Blackall is the mastermind behind this “unconference roadshow” and it is a masterful example of social networking and flat collaboration. For 10 days across a range of venues over the Shaky Isles, taking in the eFest in Wellington as well and talking e-learning with all and sundry at the various visits and events along the way. Even Artichoke who is not associated all that much with TALO (not that I’m all that active there either) signed on the other day. So my challenge is to participate virtually, reading the blog, checking out the wiki, sign up for the The Future of Learning in a Networked World Google Group and check out the Flickr feed. Not quite as good as being there but I’m not missing out totally.

Then there’s the Global Summit coming up in October. That looks awesome but at A$795 a head plus airfare plus accommodation to get to Sydney and stay (not including my release from my work for that time) it’s beyond my reach unless someone from educationau reads this blog, takes pity on me and offers sponsorship in exchange for massive live blogging of the event. Never mind, Al Upton will be there (I think) and I hope he gets to go to Leigh Blackall’s session there and say “G’day” for me.

But there is a great conference available at a price that suits me and won’t cause any ripples to my family life routine – the K-12 Online Conference. I still have to read more thoroughly about how it’s all going to work and it has received a fair bit of publicity around the edublogosphere. On Sunday afternoon, I checked my home desktop for e-mail and saw that Wesley Fryer had shared his Skype details with me and was online at the time, 11.40 pm his time. (Don’t you just love my blogger name dropping!) I had to say “G’day” and after a quick exchange of pleasantries, Wesley asked if I had considered submitting something for the K-12. I had never even considered that I’d submit anything but as Wes is in charge of the Overcoming Obstacles strand, he got me thinking that maybe I should give some thought to participating in this way. The deadline is Sept. 30 so if I make sure that I attend to my own local school priorities, it could be a goer. Anyway, it promises to be really good with keynote podcasts, online resources and heaps of great learning. And while on the topic of Wes, I appreciated his pointer to a great resource for use in the primary school classroom, Mission Possible: Successful Online Research – an online video produced by answers.com. I used it this afternoon with my class on the ACTIVboard after our Go-Go golf session was rained on (ironic, considering how I started this post) and the kids were engaged and pulled some good pointers from it. Even though, someone muttered under their breath towards the end that they thought it was an extended infomercial for answers.com!! At least it’s something educationally useful being plugged – a resource that helps kids to gain and sort through the information overload of the web is a resource that teachers should become familiar with. Hope there’s more in the information literacy vein at the K-12 Online Conference. See you there.
k12.jpg

ICT Coordinator – Techie In Disguise

Published on August 24, 2006 in Personal Reflections and Staff Training. 2 Comments

It’s always dangerous adding another blog to the aggregator, another conversation to follow but when I find one that speaks to me on topics that I relate to, in it goes. My latest addition comes from the Bump On The Blog where Brian Grenier is saying a lot of things that describe my role pretty closely.

What’s been concerning me more though is how I can get teachers to understand exactly what my job is and get them to act upon some of my suggestions. Let me try to clarify the predicament I am speaking of. If I had to sum up my job in one sentence (which I do quite often), it would be this; I assist/train teachers with integrating technology into their curriculum with the ultimate goal of improving student achievement. That said, what I have come to notice is that teachers are calling upon me NOT to help them integrate technology, but rather to fix some technical problem (printers, network access, setting up computers, etc…) I’m not quite sure how to address this situation, being that I really don’t feel I am in a position to tell teachers what they should be doing in their classroom. I really don’t mind troubleshooting and solving problems for teachers, but I fear that by doing this too often I am neglecting to do what I really should, and want, to be doing. I’ve tried taking the opportunity in the past to talk to teachers about technology integration as I was in the process of fixing some technical problem, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. I usually get comments like “That’s a great idea” or “Hmmm, I never thought about doing it that way. I leave thinking that maybe this teacher will actually try implementing some of my ideas, ask me to work with them one on one to get a better grasp on strategies, or share the idea with some of their colleagues who would show some interest. I’m disappointed when the next time they approach me is not to talk about these ideas, but to fix some new technical problem. I’d really like to hear some comments about ways you would suggest, or have approached, such situations.

Brian’s dilemma is one I share and it’s not an easy thing to resolve. In my role, I help to set stuff up so that the technology is focussed on the learning and that requires some technical thought and basic expertise. But my role statement is about improving teaching and learning, and it is easy for that role to play second fiddle to trouble shooting. The bottom line is also that if the technology doesn’t work, then the risk is that teachers won’t bother. My difficulty is finding the time to find that balance between working on improving teachers’ ICT use and resolving technical problems that help them get back on track quickly. For example, at the moment I have a teacher who has calibration issues with the ACTIVboard in the classroom, a laptop out of action for another teacher who needs it for her ACTIVboard and another request for a classroom computer to have the local printer installed.

Sometimes the two parts meld together. Another teacher wants to use the new scanner in the MYLU block. In this case, the technical aspect is to install the software for the teacher, show her how to hook it up to her laptop – but the teaching and learning payoff comes because my actions then enable her to implement her own teaching and learning agenda. But in the scheme of things, using an ICT coordinator hired to influence teaching and learning is an expensive way to solve technical issues.

So, my way around this is try and lead by example, pushing new ideas out to the staff members who seem most receptive and keeping the conversation ticking over in the staffroom. Look for opportunities to offer leads and tips to others – with our new IWB users, a new website for resources or cool new application can be what helps them to maintain enthusiasm and keep working towards the seamless integration of ICT in their classroom. I also don’t want to be seen as the “expert” (although in some ways, that’s unavoidable) because that can backfire as methods or ideas I propose can be seen as requiring too much technology based expertise for a busy, regular classroom teacher. So, my role is always a state of constant re-invention, a work in progress – in the end, I don’t think I have much insight to offer Brian.

Just a deep sense of empathy.

Pre-Web2 Showcase Publicity

Published on August 23, 2006 in Staff Training and Web 2.0. 0 Comments

Just a quick advertisement for a free event for Adelaide based teachers called the Web2 Showcase. Blurb from the TSOF website as follows:

Web2 Showcase: All you wanted to know but were too afraid to ask! Thursday September 21st, 2006, 4.15 – 6.30 pm, Discovery Centre, TSoF Guest presenters: Graham Wegner, Al Upton, Mike Seyfang, and Yvonne Murtagh This is a free event An introduction to some of the collaborative Web2 resources that are quick, easy, intuitive, free, personal, collaborative, connected and empowering for kids and teachers.

It’s going to be in the vein of Darren Kuropatwa‘s Whiplash! concept where each new tool set gets a fifteen minute overview before it switches to the next presenter. I’m going to do two sections – one on wikis and the other on Personal StartPages and it is pretty amazing to be part of a group of such high calibre educators involved in working out how these new tools can play a part in our classrooms.

All Thoughts Lead To CEGSA.

Published on July 14, 2006 in Personal Reflections and Staff Training. 2 Comments

I’ve been enjoying the holiday break and spending some quality time with the family. I went to Teachers Golf Day on the Monday at the wonderful Murray Bridge Golf Club. I was my usual inconsistent self mixing in two birdies with some atrocious holes including sailing a long tee shot over the out-of-bounds fence onto someone’s gravel driveway. On Tuesday we took the boys to see Over The Hedge at the cinema. I still marvel at the amazing animation in children’s films these days especially after we saw Cars the other week as well. The first ten minutes of that movie were a sensory spectacular – I loved the realistic shine and gleam on the animated cars as they jockeyed for position on the precisely detailed track, putting even an X-Box 360 to shame. I still have to consciously remind myself that the “wow” factor I experience isn’t necessarily the same for my sons – in fact, because it is so “real” I wonder if the blurred distinction between the real world and animated world is impossible to detect in their malleable minds. Certainly, in my youth, cartoons like The Roadrunner Show and Huckleberry Hound didn’t have that problem.

Every evening though, I fire up the laptop and spend some time tweaking and preparing for my blogging workshop at the upcoming CEGSA conference. Now North Americans might all head to NECC but in this part of the world, this conference is a big deal. So,I’ve been fussing over a Powerpoint slideshow that will serve as a backdrop/brain prompt/presentation tool and trying to observe some of the ideas and philosophies I’ve read over at Presentation Zen. I’m trying to keep text to short memorable phrases (Be a contributor, not just a consumer) and a simple colour scheme in line with the “less is more” approach. I went hunting through the Creative Commons section of Flickr for some handy images and ended up looking at Leigh Blackall’s Networked Learning images. I loved the overcast sky on the first pic and that became the genesis of a simple idea for my own presentation. Armed with our Canon Ixus 500, I went out in the backyard and took some shots of the afternoon sky to use. My youngest child, Joshua, followed me out and I ended up pushing him on the swing for a fair while. This worked out well because the weather and clouds kept changing, presenting me with new potential backdrops.

One thing leads to another…. (Leigh’s image first, followed by mine)
What’s the point of this post? Not too sure but I think I’ve been somewhat influenced by the Daniel Pink book, “A Whole New Mind.” If anyone couldn’t tell, I’ve just finished the section on Design which is influencing the way I’m going to present my message. I’ve also read Story and some of my diagrams like my QuikMap of my Commenting Community will help with that aspect. Now to keep reading the section on Symphony to pull the whole thing together.

Fostering A South Aussie Education Blogging Community

Published on July 6, 2006 in Blogging, Future Directions and Staff Training. Closed

I attended an informative meeting tonight of educators interested in exploring the potential of blogging within our education system as a follow on from the Blogging Masterclass of last month. Now the purpose of this post is not to rehash the proceedings or the discussion from that hour, as productive as it was. I didn’t take notes, so my recollections could be erroneous and I don’t have permission to paraphrase other people’s utterings. But I’d like to expand on what I think I see here in South Australia and whether we have the opportunity to establish and nurture an Education Blogging Community. The interest group consists of several experienced edubloggers, some educators who have dabbled but haven’t launched into the full “blogging experience” and some beginners still working out what it all means for them. As for teachers who weren’t at the Masterclass or participating in the comments section of the Masterclass blog, then it is impossible to gauge whether there is a community in the making or whether most teachers will just not want to know (too busy, too close to retirement, not confident, not informed, not caring!) and we are just indulging in wistful thinking. Considering that most bloggers have stumbled into this form of communication, a measured approach just might not work. And providing a sheltered place for interested educators to find out more (Moodle, Janison) is self defeating. Mastering the technology is just the first step. But users won’t take that step unless they have some idea about the commitment, the purpose and potential of using a blog. I do think we need to focus on getting teachers to try blogging for themselves before we try and develop teachers blogging with their kids. The possible solutions to manage a class full of blogs are there but a learning curve needs to take place first before you even know the tools exist. This post from Dean Shareski really explains how the evolution could take place:

But if we as educators have never entered into a global conversation, it’s not likely we’ll ever create that opportunity for our students. But as we all know and I told the administrators, kids are already having them so when will we?

I think that the Masterclass blog (or a new one if needed) is a reasonable starting point for interested teachers to start dabbling. I am prepared to share things I’ve learnt along the way at that online venue and get others commenting and joining the conversation. I’d offer more beginner type stuff that I wouldn’t post here because I believe the vast majority of my readers are ahead of me anyway! The more I think about it, becoming part of a blogging community is a very organic experience and can’t really be planned or organised – an interest group can plant some seeds and watch to see if it grows. The group needs to support our less experienced but equal partners or risk having them turned off and their spark of enthusiasm snuffed out by the wind created by over fast movement. I realise that students are interacting online (often unsafely) and that they need guidance and structured opportunity. They need teachers who have some expertise and answers to the non-technical aspects of interacting with and publishing to a potential global audience. So I think we (the interest group) should set up a starting point for teachers who want to know more and use the expanded Masterclass blog as a jumping off point.

This Idea Could Actually Work

Published on February 11, 2006 in Staff Training. Closed

My recent post, Is It Possible To Have Self Directed PD? attracted some quality responses via comments and pingbacks which confirmed my ideas could and have worked before. Thanks to all who have contributed either to provide examples or additional thoughts. I would highly recommend downloading the pdf file that Doug Johnson provided. Titled “The 21st Century Educator”, it is a highly developed professional development program with rubrics, growth targets and exemplars. Although it would need a fair bit of Australianisation, what I really like is the structure it would bring to what would essentially be a “just in time” program for my colleagues.

I’m confident that my principal can see value in my proposal after an interesting ICT Committee meeting on Friday. We were talking about the increased pressure on valuable work time when our very capable network manager (who also has quite a few other admin responsibilities) is treated by a lot of our staff as the on call help desk. Sometimes, I attract that sort of requests for help as well. The requests, which all take time and goodwill, range from unjamming printers to showing someone how to do an e-mail attachment to printing off a class list to troubleshooting unplugged cables. Ann, my principal then said that it sounded like a lot of staff needed “just-in-time” skills training so that they could solve these problems on their own and allow the admin time to be well used. Bingo! I gave a thumbnail sketch of my proposal and we also agreed to draw up an ICT technology skills register of staff members so that we all could be become each other’s help desk instead of relying on the goodwill and expertise of one or two people. These skills acquisitions are different to my self-directed learning proposal and need to be kept separate but the value of people starting where they are and looking at mapping their way forward is exactly the mindshift us 21st educators need to take.