NAPLaNs And U-Turns

Published on May 14, 2011 in Future Directions. 2 Comments

Australian students in Years 3, 5, & and 9 have just spent the week taking the annual NAPLaN tests. With some controversy last year over cheating allegations, there can be no doubt that the label of “high stakes” can now be applied to these tests. It doesn’t seem to matter what is said about the fact that a test like this is only a snapshot of student capability – the inclusion of this data on the MySchool website causes a lot of angst amongst students, parents and educators as the media and politicians line up to judge their worth individually and collectively. There are fears that the data will be twisted to tell an unflattering story and one school at least has moved to deny the MySchool site that NAPLaN derived data.

AS MORE than 300,000 NSW students sat the first of three NAPLAN tests yesterday, parents at a small private school in the Blue Mountains staged a boycott to ensure its results will not be reported on the federal government’s My School website.

But schools whose principals or teachers encourage children not to sit national literacy and numeracy tests may face disciplinary action in future, the NSW Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, warned.

I also had an interesting conversation with one of my colleagues who had caught a television interview with Linda Darling-Hammond where she was convinced that the education adviser of President Obama’s transition team had said that the US was moving away from high stakes testing. Because I rely on my Google Reader filled with the savviest educators from that part of the world to keep me informed, I was skeptical. I’ve been reading over the last few years about how intense and how data driven schools have become in America that I was sure that my colleague must have been mistaken. So I went hunting to find out for myself what was being said.

Professor Darling-Hammond said Australia would be wiser to follow the examples of Finland, Korea, Shanghai and Singapore, whose 15-year-olds achieve the best results in numeracy, literacy and science in comparisons with other developed nations.

“The US is taking a U-turn away from test-based accountability,” said Professor Darling-Hammond. ”We hope not to meet Australia heading in the other direction in seeking policies we have sought to move away from.”

From The Australian:

Professor Darling-Hammond said Australia’s national literacy and numeracy tests, NAPLAN, were not “intellectually ambitious” but “bubble”and provided only limited information about students’ capabilities.

And The Age:

Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor of Education at Stanford University, said the perception of improved results in New York was created after performance standards were lowered. Once standards were readjusted, results “crashed”.

Professor Darling-Hammond, who advised US President Barrack Obama on education during his presidential campaign, and who was reportedly among candidates for the position of education secretary in the Obama administration, will address educators in Sydney tonight, warning Australia against repeating the same mistakes the US has made.

She says NAPLAN-style testing has failed in America. Standardised tests in the US have been criticised for narrowing the school curriculum to reading and maths and multiple choice formats. Punitive measures had resulted in teachers “teaching to the test” to improve results, which determined whether schools and teachers would receive bonus payments. Judged by student results, many of the best teachers fled the underperforming schools that most needed them.

So, my colleague was right about what Darling-Hammond was saying. But what I’m curious about is the statement that the US is “taking a U-turn”. Is that true or just wistful thinking on her part?

Judy O’Connell Is / Was Coming To Town

Published on May 2, 2011 in Conferences & PD. 0 Comments

My local professional association, CEGSA in alliance with SLASA are holding a joint conference starting on Friday 13th May. What is really cool is that Judy O’Connell, one of my favourite Aussie edubloggers is the Friday twilight keynote, and I’m really looking forward to meeting her and hearing her speak. Judy has always been encouraging of my online efforts and generously gave me a thorough tour of Jokaydia in Second Life when I was getting the feel for that environment.

I’m also presenting one of the sessions after the keynote, and have decided to do a bit of ramble through the world of digital content in the search for what constitutes digital literacy in 2011. Unlike Judy, I won’t be guaranteed an audience which is always a risk when investing so much personal time for a presentation. Maybe I’ll post the script and slides after the event for anyone interested. Here’s the abstract:

Digital Content Meets Digital Literacy

The world is awash in digital content – we connect to it via the internet, our desktops, our laptops, our tablets and our mobile phones. Traditional media (newspapers, television, radio, books and magazines) has had to quickly adapt to the new world using a combination of reaction and adaptation. This ubiquitous digital content has changed what it means to be literate forever. So what is worth noticing in this “digital sea”? What should the average educator know about digital literacy? What should they be aware of in a world where all information, true, false, theoretical and fictional, is only a search away?
This presentation will be an exploration of the current digital landscape – connecting the dots between how traditional media is adapting and how user generated content and social media bring their own set of new literacy requirements for educators and students alike to grapple with. By taking a close and critical view at this array of digital content, you will see that literacy needs to expand beyond print and traditional authorship and educators need to well informed in order to become digital literate themselves if they are to equip their students to cope in the world as it currently exists.

Hopefully, I’ll get to have a chat with Judy at the conference dinner later on Friday evening. It is always nice to meet online colleagues face to face.

Update: Unfortunately, the conference has been postponed for the foreseeable future. I’ll have to wait for another opportunity to meet Judy! was

Crowdsourcing To Supplement My Meager Scientific Knowledge

Published on April 15, 2011 in Inquiry. 3 Comments

Belinda, my neighbour in our new classroom block, went for a look at one of the newly amalgamated schools in the northern suburbs of Adelaide (dubbed one of the so called “super schools” by the Adelaide media). Today, she showed one of her photos from her visit that had both of us puzzled.
blair athol north ps 009

Belinda pointed out the long white jagged line that goes from the foreground towards the back of the room and asked me what I thought it was. She also said that whatever it was, it wasn’t visible to her when she took the photo and can’t recall if there were any electrical devices in the room. So, I have no idea but I suggested that I would post it here and appeal to the collective (and much more scientific) intelligence of my (and your) network. You can click on the image here to go to the original full sized version that shows more detail.

What are we looking at here?

Is it some sort of electrical disturbance that happened at the precise moment of photography?

What could causing it?

Please help us out with either your considered opinion or pointers to potential answers. Our thanks in advance. Cheers.

The Incredible Going Back In Time Facebook Machine

Published on April 9, 2011 in Personal Reflections. 1 Comment

I’m sure that people who friend me on Facebook are invariably disappointed because I don’t actually DO anything on there. I have a handful of people on my list who I was friendly with during secondary school but I’ve resisted adding anyone that I recognise in the same way I’ve avoided going back to any school year level reunions. I’m just not that interested in linking back with people who weren’t interested in me at that point in my life – thirty years on isn’t going to change that. Interestingly, I enjoyed hanging out with kids the year level behind me more than my colleagues in the Class of ’83 and it was from one of those connections (a guy called Ian “Bushy” Martin) that I ended coming face to face with a much younger me in the labyrinth that is Facebook.Picture 2

I’m figuring that the year is 1986. Please note the very eighties jacket with the trendy Kimba The White Lion t-shirt. The photo was taken at the Woodville Town Hall at a gig that featured the cleverly named “Punt Kaybal”, a band that featured the before mentioned Bushy Martin on drums and if my feeble memory serves me well, was the vocalist as well. Now I know that I don’t really have the right to poach a copy of this image as any copyright or intellectual property belongs to Facebook itself, thanks to the user agreement that signs those rights away.

Now if this image can come back to me from pre-web days to haunt me and be beyond my control, then it reinforces what I say to many of the parents of students in my classes over the past couple of years. Just because you don’t let your child use Facebook and manage to prevent them creating and maintaining a profile on there, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t on Facebook somewhere.

MIS 2011 – Melbourne Forum

Published on April 4, 2011 in Conferences & PD and Future Directions. 0 Comments

I returned yesterday from three days in Melbourne attending the first Microsoft Innovative Schools Forum for 2011. Twenty schools were selected from around Australia to participate as the 2011 cohort and Melbourne was the first event in a program that is designed to promote innovation and networking between public schools with a change agenda that leverages the potential of ICT. My school, along with Charles Campbell Secondary School, was fortunate enough to be one of the two South Australian representatives attending with our key select group of Ann, my principal, myself as the ICT coordinator and Trent, our focus classroom teacher. Each school sent a similar team of three. The forum consisted of an official launch at Parliament House in East Melbourne on the Wednesday night, a full Thursday meeting, setting up for and connecting the 2011 cohort at an inner city conference facility, and the Friday was spent out at the fabulous Silverton Primary School following through on a focussed inquiry that would tie to our own school’s developing project plans.

Dallas
Trent and I flew out of Adelaide early Wednesday and took the opportunity to visit Dallas Brooks Community School. Amanda and Lynn, the two campus principals, and Ramon, their ELearning coordinator were extremely generous with their time and we got a really good look around a school that has really made a name for itself. I won’t go into a lengthy description about the school here but if you go to this page, click on the Worldwide tab and scroll down to Dallas Primary, then the embedded video tells their story far better than I can.

But I can tell you what I saw, and that was students focussed on their learning, using technology tools as they required, across the year levels in a variety of ways. We had a look through the Year 5/6 unit first and saw the students using their 1:1 netbooks. Much like I saw at St Albans Meadows 18 months ago, the devices were an integral part of the classroom, students using them as the need arose in a very independent way. There were no whole class teacher led lessons going on, but a mixture of independent and paired kids working on tasks, or small groups focussed on a particular activity. Throughout the school, this was a real feature and what impressed me was the focus of these students, many of whom come from a disadvantaged background. In one classroom, there were two Year Six students coaching some Year One students on how to use an X-Box Kinect that focussed on developing their gross motor skills. They had four young proteges and worked with them in pairs, bringing one pair to use the LCD television at the front of the room while the other two simply picked up their readers and continued with that particular task. While this went on, a larger group of students were seated in a corner on the floor working with their teacher on word letter blends, completely absorbed in their activity and no paying any attention to the potentially distracting Kinect action. Dallas has a student television station that is part of a larger focus on oral language skills – something that their large English as a Second Language population needs as a priority. My takeaway from this is not that every primary school needs a television station, but that having a whole school project around a student priority is a great way for all year levels to connect.

I think one mental danger when visiting other schools is to start thinking about what can be replicated back at my own school, or grabbing ideas that start next week, when clearly what I saw there was part of a long term big picture strategy that requires staff commitment, exceptional leadership, piece by piece implementation and tellingly, a commitment to being as open as possible. The fact that we were able to access that is a great example of that openness. Dallas are also a Microsoft Innovative School (Pathfinder status) and Amanda’s and Lynn’s advice on how we could get the most of the program was very helpful.

dallas

Kinect @ Dallas

Parliament House
This was a pretty swish affair with all 2011 school teams gathering around drinks and nibbles before an official launch by the Microsoft Australia Education team, in partnership with the Victorian DEECD. We heard from the principals of Dallas and Silverton, and got the chance to mingle and start the networking that promises to be a major feature of this program.

2011 Microsoft Forum Launch

2011 Microsoft Forum Launch

Wegner with Kennett

Wegner with Kennett

Forum Day One – Cliftons
Our next day was run at the Cliftons Conference Centre a short stroll from our accommodation, where the day was capably run by Sean Tierney, Joan Dalton and Cheryl Doig. We were paired with another person from another school to conduct a Partner Inquiry. I got to connect with a young teacher, Mitchell, from Buckley Park College who was a very nice person with a high level of tech-savviness. She had the AnswerGarden page for the group up and bookmarked before I could even get logged into delicious. I suppose that could explain why she was the school’s eLearning Coach. The two of us then made up a larger six person Co-Lab who met to introduce ourselves. The Co-Lab was made of two principals, two middle managers (like myself, holding down coordinator or Assistant Principal positions) and two classroom practitioners and our group of six came from six different states. Later the group met to discuss a document called the Learning talk Covenant using a structured method called “final word”. We all read silently, highlighting a phrase or section that struck a chord with us. That was shared in turn, with each Co-Lab member reading their chosen segment aloud, then each other member responding until the original person had the “final word”. A lot of this activity was geared towards opening lines of communication and getting us all to be open to listening to other cohort members without necessarily polluting conversational waters with our own experiences from and change agendas for our own schools.

We had a look at an online project for students called DeforestAction, which is what Microsoft Education believe technology enabled learning could (and maybe should) look like. Another tool we were introduced to was the Microsoft PIL “Building Skills for Tomorrow” which shares a strong resemblance to many similar tools, including the ISTE NETS which we use at my school. At this stage, we re-convened back in our school teams as we then use that tool to hone in on planning a Learning Walk¹ for the next day’s program at Sliverton. Ann, Trent and I identified Love of Learning as our focus, keeping in mind the possible transference to our own school’s needs. We then formed planning groups with other people covering the same Skill, and worked out what questions we would focus on asking students and staff in the classrooms at Silverton, what we would be looking for in terms of student learning and facilities and tools to assist that learning, plus thinking about what it would sound look as well. I worked with a teacher, Julie from Tasmania, and a high school teacher from Townsville in Queensland.

Old Melbourne Gaol
This was the site for the Gala Dinner and we were assigned three other schools to sit with. We were given a guided tour by Mrs. Kelly, the “mother” of infamous Australian bushranger, Ned Kelly, who was hanged in that very gaol in November 1880. The dinner was served at an enormous long table running the length of the bottom level of the gaol and was a great chance to meet and mix with others.

Wegner with Ned Kelly

Wegner with Ned Kelly

Silverton
Friday saw everyone up early and on the bus down to Silverton Primary on the south east side of Melbourne. We were greeted by the two school captains and ushered into the school’s new BER funded hall. We got ourselves ready for our targetted Learning walk throughout the school where we were free to talk to any child, staff member or leader about what we were seeing. We met Tony Bryant, the principal and got into our teams to check out the school. The first thing I noticed was a large LCD television screen embedded into a wall with a Wii-mote hanging from a hook – Wii for the students during their break times! We went into the Year 5/6 Learning Centre first and what struck me first was how scattered the students were around the unit, all engaged in a variety of learning activities using a blend of technologies and traditional paper based materials. The students were obviously used to having visitors and happily spoke about their learning. We saw inquiry tasks around the topic of the Victorian gold rush before adjourning to the Year 3/4 Centre where Literacy block was in full swing. Again, technology was there but used as one of many choices for the learning to be done. Students were constructing learning goals on documents and small groups were gathered around portable projectors examining texts as part of their reading program. We looked at the Year 1/2 kids and the Preps involved in their Discovery Time, which is a structured play program that had a very detailed ongoing assessment regime maintained by the supervising teachers. I spoke to the Multimedia teacher, who ran the Television and Radio station, an enterprise much like the one at Dallas, that was a whole school project focused on improving the oral speaking skills of their students. There were predetermined roles for various year levels – the Year 1/2s were the anchors, the Year 3/4 kids did the filming and the Year 5/6 students were the reporters. The footage was then broadcast around the school on the many LCD screens and uploaded onto the school website where the parent community could access it.

TV Station @ Silverton

TV Station @ Silverton

The Learning Walk focused us on the Love of Learning angle, and we took photos and snippets of Flipcam footage because our final task was to start a multimedia presentation on that angle about the school that we could share with other 2011 MIS cohort members and to take back home to our own schools. We also shared our start on this with another school – in this case, Coomera Springs State School from Queensland. Seeing another group’s take on the school also opened up our own perspectives. No matter about what anyone thought about the school’s practices, it is one heck of a statement of trust and belief to open up your school to sixty high level educators for examination and Silverton should be congratulated on that. They do have a lot to be proud of.

Learning Centre @ Silverton

Learning Centre @ Silverton

So, What’s The Big Deal

Microsoft is often portrayed as being the bad guy in the technology world and there are some good reasons for that label. But Apple advocates don’t hold the moral high ground either when it comes to monopolistic practices, so I’m fine with my work at educational improvement for my school and its learners being associated with the Microsoft name. Truth be known, I’ve applied three times to be a Microsoft Innovative Educator and never got close. But my record with helping my school to gain entry to these sort of programs is a lot better, and now I’d rather be a team player than an individual maverick seeking acknowledgement from a mystery corporate judge. So, this opportunity to meet and mingle with leaders and teachers from over twenty public schools around Australia trying to make a difference is a career highlight. The Microsoft funding gives us access to some of the highest quality facilitators available in this part of the world and a chance to look closely under the hood of schools that have moved to the next highest level in the Microsoft Education program. These three days have been invaluable for examining where our school is heading, whether the initiatives we are trialling will have legs, gaining some affirmation for the programs and ideas we already have in place and making plans to continue the growth of learning programs for our students.

I have had some personal revelations building from my participation at the recent ACEL conference when thinking about my own leadership roles and opportunities within our education system. The message I got from that conference was don’t be afraid to look for the next opportunity, be ready to move if needed and don’t stay in one place for too long so that your own change agenda becomes mundane and ineffective. But listening to Tony describe his school’s journey and his role over an extended period of time (he started as principal in 1989) had me re-thinking about what it means to make a difference. I’m lucky. I work at a progressive school in a role well suited to my skills and knowledge in Learning Technologies and one could argue that the school could continue to progress without my input but another school less advanced in their journey would benefit from my experience. Our school has already that several times as teachers and other leaders have gone onto more influential positions in other schools, thereby raising the possibilities for their new schools and improving the education system in that way. But another way to look at that could be that my current position helps drive our school in time to a level similar to Dallas and Silverton – the influence is then that schools come to look at what we do and take those ideas and seeds for improvement back to their home base. Either way is a valid use of my talents – and my leadership does not have to come from a positional title. I like to think that I also provide some of that influence via this blog and my other online contributions, showing that ordinary educators need to roll up their sleeves and get online to mix it up and trade ideas and knowledge with other educators worldwide.

1. A Learning Walk is defined as “a regular, focused walk in and around learning areas for a brief period of time – observing and gathering data – followed by reflection, feedback and setting of future goals.” think.beyond.co.nz

I Work With Rock Star Teachers

Published on March 25, 2011 in Middle Schooling. 2 Comments

I’ve just spent the last two days at a fantastic event hosted by ACEL (Australian Council of Educational Leadership) and led by the amazing Simon Breakspear. It was held for “Emerging Leaders” and it is nice to think of myself as fitting into the category somewhat, although I would definitely say that it has taken a fair while in terms of years for me to start to emerge. (A little more along that train of thought in another post.)

Anyway, one of Simon’s recurring terms for teachers who are innovative, striving to improve and renowned for outstanding practice is “rock star teachers.” He had this fantastic image up on screen of a guy drinking directly from the coffee jug as a visual metaphor for where these teachers are at this time of term as their energy levels start to flag from running at a furious pace from the start of the year. He painted this picture of teachers who push so hard in their job that they often forget to have lunch but who maintain the respect of their students the whole time, and who never stop trying to present the best possible learning scenarios for them.

The phrase has stuck with me, because as he spoke I started thinking about the “rock star teachers” I’m lucky enough to work with every day in my learning team. They fit his description perfectly. I’ve never worked with a bunch of colleagues who work as hard, who hold themselves to such high standards, who email each other and post stuff to share on our wiki with each other at insanely late hours, who take improvement so seriously as the team I work with right now. They are deserving of this title. They should be adulated and cheered by students as they stroll through the school. I know they are appreciated even though they are more of a “supergroup“. Think of a teacher version of the “Traveling Wilburys” and they are a privilege to work with.

This morning, Simon had his PollEverywhere SMS system working and asked us to send in any message about the previous day that had stuck. I took the opportunity and sent this in:

That if we’re talking about rock star teachers, then we do need to beware the burnt out rock star teacher!

I know that the metaphor is handy in a lot of ways to describe those high achieving teachers who lead out from the classroom. True rock stars progress in their musical talents and generally become better and more mature as their career advances, although it can only take a short amount of time to be propelled to stardom. But take on too much and you run the risk of being the burnt out rock star. The rock star teacher needs careful management to preserve their precious talent, because like many real life rock stars, their vocation can be detrimental to their own well being and health.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smailtronic/2066826410/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smailtronic/2066826410/

Connected Students

Published on March 17, 2011 in Future Directions and Mobile Technology. 5 Comments

One to one laptop programs have been around here in Australia for quite a while now. Gary Stager spoke extensively about that last year when he was in Australia, pointing out the work of David Loader who pioneered the first school notebook program at Melbourne’s Methodist Ladies College back in 1990. I’ve visited a couple of schools who have ventured down that track – St Albans Meadows in Melbourne and Holy Family here in Adelaide – and the model seems to be the same whenever one talks about 1:1 in today’s schools. Firstly, head over to the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation (AALF) website, plan your school’s path forward using their excellent 21 Steps To 21st Century Learning and decide on a suitable affordable model of laptop to roll out.

I really enjoyed the sessions with Travis Smith late last year and took his advice of “don’t rush your school community into things” advice to my site as we grapple with our own proposals for a 1 to 1 program. We are close to running a 1:1 classroom trial for the year in a key classroom to answer a number of the questions posed by our parent community. But what if the tried and true model of 1:1 laptops has already had its day?

Quite a few high schools around Adelaide have already jumped into the breech, rolling out parent funded laptops to their Year Eights. Through my contacts, I’ve seen some of the laptop choices (ranging from a 10 inch netbook to a Apple Macbook) and heard some of the stories. Paraphrased quotes and stories following below:

“My son was proud when his class received their laptops in the first week and he knew how to log on and get using it straightaway while some of his classmates struggled. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been called upon in classes since.”

“My sister had her laptop in her backpack when she went down to the beach after school with her friends and it got stolen.”

So, the popular move is to use a one size fits all model. Working for a large system, I understand the thinking behind this – control, control and more control. It’s seen in the way we set up wireless and networks in schools where digital certificates and complex logons manage and restrict the connected environment. This way, the school owns the laptops, can manage the software licensing, keep technical issues down to a minimum (which is lucky because most schools operate on a shoestring budget when it comes to technicians) and keep track of laptop movement via library barcodes. We can feed our filtered “safe” internet through these networks onto identical, predictable machines that equalise the connected experience.

But is this the only scenario?

I lurk on a mailing-list called Oz-teachers where the regular contributors debate topics in such an in-depth and authorative way that I feel more comfortable dipping into their conversations via my Gmail. Brett Clarke is an Oz-teachers frequenter whose observations really challenge my fairly conservative (conservative as in limited in scope, not as in right wing political leanings) world view. On a number of occasions, he has posited that 1 to 1 as a managed roll out is a concept that passed its start by date. Recently, he stated the following:

If you’re at a school that didn’t already catch that wave several years ago, then just skip it and move on. The kids will thank you  for it and the staff won’t have to learn the whole laptop thing and then learn what it means to go mobile 12 months later…

Another gem that has me wondering about what we should be doing in the primary when investing for the future:

I’ll say it again – now is NOT the time to be starting a laptop/netbook programme in your school!

This is not to say schools shouldn’t have some laptops – but not high ratios – just for the few situations where the tablet may not be the most convenient/appropriate alternative…

I’m also intrigued by David Truss’s BYO Laptop program as a concept. I know from conversations with my students that a sizeable number of them already have a laptop of their own. I then wonder what their parents’ reaction would be when the school announces a laptop program that dictates a particular model and cost. I can hear it already.

“Why can’t my child just bring their laptop to school?”

There would need to be several major shifts in thinking to be able to say yes.

Firstly, our wireless network would have to change its security settings so that non-networked laptops could gain access. There would be the issue of software licensing and a well thought approach so that office software like OpenOffice or possibly GoogleDocs become ways to avoid breaching proprietary software licenses. The biggest shift would have to come from teachers who are comfortable with familiar programs, network paths and occasional use of computing technology.

There are times when I think that the students are more ready for these shifts than we are.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownpau/5108073282/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownpau/5108073282/

Me In The Mainstream Media (for the 2nd time ever)

Published on March 4, 2011 in Internet. 0 Comments

This is purely a vanity posting and possibly demonstrates how traditional media (newspapers, magazines etc.) still have a pretty strong hold on my consciousness. Many of my virtual colleagues are featured with regularity in magazines, quoted in articles, featured in television segments but it is a real rarity for me and perhaps befits my station in life. My opinion was sought a little while back for a piece in Adelaide’s The Independent Weekly and then late last year, I was contacted by an editor at Australian Teacher Magazine to contribute to a small column feature called Q & A for their monthly ICT In Education section. I almost forgot about it until an email arrived from the same magazine plugging something else and triggered my memory and sent me looking online to see if I’d made “the big time”.

It’s in the February edition and below is a screen grab of the column. I’ve then copied the article into a easier to read image if you actually want to read it or you can check out the whole virtual version of the magazine here.ozteachermag

oztchmag

T..y..p..i..n..g

Published on March 3, 2011 in Future Directions. 2 Comments

My principal and I have had a few conversations of late about the role of typing in a computer rich environment. Basically, we are both pondering about what level of typing skills are needed by primary school students and what sort of support for these skills should come from the classroom. Despite the inroads of laptops and desktops within our school environment, the majority of students spend a large part of their day using the cheap and common tools of pencils, paper and pens and handwriting skills are part of the curriculum taught to enable students to be successful using those mediums.

So, I raised the issue the other night with our eLearning Committee to see what our teachers thought about the role that typing skills played within our classrooms. I heard that in reality, students have limited opportunities to use laptops and that within the scope of those limits, spending a chunk of time focussing on the formal skills of typing was not a high priority. We use a program on our network called Typing Tournament  which the students really enjoy. It is low fuss, each student has their own profile that saves their progress and the game interface holds their attention. I then referred to a really useful blog post from Mike Dunlop where he airs quite a lot of very worthwhile thoughts. This is a short sample from that post:

Keyboarding is now a low stakes activity. Errors can be easily corrected with the click of a mouse. Whole paragraphs can be changed, moved and formatted during the proof-reading phase. The concept of a typing pool has all but disappeared – most adult professionals are capable of keyboarding to a level sufficient to perform their computer-related jobs independently – whether or not they took high-school typing courses.

Whenever I’ve looked around the web for research on either for or against keyboarding instruction in primary classrooms, I have come up essentially empty handed. Tonight, I had another browse around and found some interesting links worthy of further exploration and consideration.

Keyboarding Research & Resources (most posts seem to be very pro-keyboarding but there are pointers to research that support their chosen position).

Keyboarding skills…do we need to teach them? a post by Jacqui Sharp with some teacher resources to support some of the concepts she covers.

When Or Do We Teach Typing? by Jeff Utecht. This is more a post where Jeff explores his own perspective rather than actual describing classroom practice or citing research but there is a wealth of opinion in the comments.

Keys to the (Online) Kingdom: The Importance of Basic Computer Skills – from Edutopia.

How do YOU Teach Touch Typing? is a back and forth conversation between Linda George and her respondents on the value of a typing program schedule used by her school.

But I am interested in what other schools do and what informs your thinking behind the programs you run (or don’t run) within your schools or classrooms. Any feedback is very much appreciated in the comments, with thanks in advance.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrwilloby/54713273/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrwilloby/54713273/

Stats That Tell A Story

Published on February 20, 2011 in Future Directions. 0 Comments

Via Tom Hoffmann‘s shared Reader feed came this post with a statistic that caught my eye.

About 80 percent of American teachers, for example, are female; at the elementary school level, nearly 90 percent are women.

I wondered what the stat would look like here in South Australia and the nation in general so I had a quick search. The article I found over on the ABS website focussed on the percentage for males, but I do know enough basic maths to work out that my state has female teachers at 69 percent of the teaching workforce.

The occupation of ‘teacher’ has historically been seen as a job for women and this predominance is increasing. In 1993 approximately 37% of teaching staff in South Australia were males but by 2009 this proportion had fallen to 31%. Teaching staff, as defined by the National Schools Statistics (NSS) collection conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), includes those in the classroom as well as principals, deputy principals and senior teachers who spend most of their time in administration (ABS 2009). Although results from the NSS collection do not allow for a distinction between males in the classroom and those mainly in positions of ‘leadership’, findings from ‘Staff in Australia’s Schools 2007′, a project commissioned by the former Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), suggest that the proportion of male teachers in Australia’s primary school classrooms, for example, could be as low as 21% (DEST 2008). Whilst there are many occupations that have a workforce gender bias, debate abounds as to how (or even if) the decline in the number of males in our schools should be addressed. On the one hand there is the commonly held view that males should be encouraged to enter the teaching profession as they provide a much needed positive role-model for children but, on the other side of the equation, is the argument that it is the calibre of teacher that is important irrespective of gender (University of Canberra 1999)

The only national stats I could find were from 2005 which cited female teachers making 76% of the Australian teaching force. This cam from a research pdf (Demand and Supply of  Primary and Secondary School Teachers in Australia) from the Curriculum Corporation website. Quite possibly the statistics have changed since that time to mirror the South Australian trend. It is quite possible that our teaching workforce stats could look very US like in the near future especially as the aging teachers retire.

Just found the comparisons interesting, that’s all.