'Learning Everywhere'

As I synthesise some of my thinking (and hyper-linking) from the last three days of the Learning@School09 conference the three keynotes from Andy Hargreaves, Pam Hook and Wes Fryer have provided both an anchor point and many springboards for my learning.

If our students “are messages we send into the future”, how do we best prepare them to succeed in a future that is increasingly unknown? Within the context of his book written with Dennis Shirley, The Fourth Way, Andy focused on the importance of investing in people and community to better develop more creative and inventive individuals, better prepared for the changing global economy. Stories from both industry (Nokia) and education (Tower Hamlets) demonstrated the improved outcomes and possibilities that can be achieved as a result of communities “connecting to the best they have been” while investing in people, through building stronger schools with increased community engagement and support for each other.

A focus on collective responsibility and communities setting high standards for achievement, in contrast to individual accountability, has proven to have a greater impact on student learning. These examples reflect the concept of Ako in Ka Hikitia and also Pam’s questioning of where and how learning takes place… “learning at school verses learning everywhere”. ICT enables students to “bypass teachers altogether” and we were reminded again about the evidence that class sizes and ICTs alone have little impact on student achievement. What makes the difference is quality teaching – what happens when we change our practice based on the evidence? ...and how can we utilise the technology and online environments to support learners more effectively as demonstrated by Wes in the final keynote? (see conference blog).

As a result of the conference keynotes (and the many conversations with others attendees in between) my thinking has predominantly been anchored by the importance of the collective responsibility for student learning. Amongst the many, many springboards the following stand out for further exploration and thinking:

Read - Visable Learning (Hattie) and The Fourth Way (Hargreaves and Shirley)
If you have access to EBSCO a preview by the authors can be downloaded from Educational Leadership, Oct 2008, Vol. 66 Issue 2, p56-61

Explore - Hooked-on-Thinking Pam and Julie’s wiki

Participate – The e-Learning Research Network online discussion Hattie and ICT Implications

Stumbled on the following video while writing this post. How is this a metaphor for the history of education?




learningatschool

A Portal to Learning@School

Last year I created a public portal to the uLearn08 conference in my aggregator, Netvibes. This was useful as I was quickly able to scan updates from the numerous conference feeds including blog posts, tweets, photos etc. Also able to share these with virtual attendees and others who could not be there in the flesh with some interesting consequences (see Reflections and Connections post).


I have created a portal for the Learning@School 09 Conference in Rotorua next week to keep track of the various conference channels and 'back chat'. I have previously blogged about the value of using an aggregator to manage online learning and maybe a conference portal could also be useful if you can't make the conference and want to personalise the conference channels you follow.

Looking forward to seeing my virtual learning network face-2-face and also collaborating with Rochelle Jensen to facilitate a few breakouts. Rocky and I are very excited to be working together over the next couple of years and will be utilising the Software for Learning wiki to learn more about how teachers are utilising e-learning to support student learning.

See you all next week,
Hei konā

tags technorati : learningatschool

Welcome to the Eastern Block e-Learning Cluster

Welcome again to Willowbank Primary, Point View Primary and Somerville Intermediate who together form a new ICT PD cluster for 2009, Eastern Block e-Learning. Today was the cluster's launch at Point View School. I have posted some photos on Flickr embedded below. As promised links to online resources explored this morning have been posted on my Delicious, a Social Bookmarking tool, which enables me to save my bookmarks online. I have included a brief descriptor for each however please contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks again to Suzie Vesper who joined us on skype. You can access Suzie's blog here, I would recommend that you add this blog to your reading list. Suzie also highlighted the website ICT PD Online the learning community area that provides support for schools involved in the ICT PD Cluster programme. Instructions for joing ICT PD online can be downloaded from the cluster wiki here.

Finally I would like to acknowledge the teachers from each of the cluster schools who stepped up and shared their knowledge at the taster sessions today, it was appreciated. If you have links and resources to support your sessions links can be included from the cluster wiki. If you need support with this contact me or your Principal.

iThink

I am loving this series of digital resources available through digiStore on TKI. Schools will need to register to access here.

iThink is a series of animated short features that include the unscripted voices of some engaging groups of children discussing their ideas on a range of topics from rubbish to relationships. The style is similar to that of the documation creations by The Simmonds Brothers and the UKTV series Creature Comforts.
I can see these being used with students in a variety of ways:

• To model and promote dialogue between groups of students
• Explore concepts in a real life context students will find engaging and can relate too
• Demonstrate the use of animation to communicate thinking and new understandings
• Students may develop their own iThink style animations to reflect on their learning.

Central North Shore Cluster Celebrates

Auckland turned on a spectacular day for our cluster celebration last Friday. Many thanks to Milford School for hosting us...the view of Lake Pupuke from the hall says it all.

It was wonderful to celebrate our eLearning journey together and look back over the past 3 years. Each of the schools presented a celebration of their learning and the impact of viewing these reinforced not only how far everyone had come but also how much we had grown in confidence...and what a lot of fun we are having learning together!

I have embedded all the presentations in the wiki here...(where else...lol!) I have cut some of the original sound tracks and replaced with FreePlay music because of copyright but feel confident that the images and video continue to convey these messages about our journey...

Change ...Everybody Learning Together...Shift Does Happen...
Student Voice...Thinking Differently

Finally what's a celebration without some dancing!

Congratulations Stephen and Helen!

We have acknowledged both our cluster and ICT PD network links as primary sources for staying current with both educational research and elearning trends as the cluster plans for 2009 and beyond. This also includes identifying opportunities for teachers to both continue their learning and to support sustainability of the learning community the cluster has developed over the past 3 years of the contract.

We are therefore very pleased to congratulate two of our teachers, Stephen Gordon and Helen Rennie-Younger who have successfully applied for teaching scholarships for 2009.

Stephen has been awarded 1 of 40 paid Primary Teacher's Sabbatical leave positions for 2009. The purpoase of his work will be to continue to build teacher capacity and understanding of eLearning and effective pedagogy and further inquiry into the development of the school's LMS to support professional development, eLearning and the NZC2007.

Helen will be one of the 10 e-fellows for 2009. Helen's research will be to inquire into strategies that may increase the level of motivation and engagement of a diverse group of young learners who are experiencing difficulties in producing written text.





We are very happy for both Helen and Stephen and recognise the value their work will bring to the continued learning opportunities for the cluster as we approach the end of the contract.

"It's on the wiki" is in the Gazette!

Our Central North Shore Cluster wiki features in the latest volume of the Education Gazette this month. Nice work everyone ;-) Catch a preview online here...

Cluster Reflections from uLearn08

We have set up a page on the wiki where cluster teachers who attended uLearn08 will post their reflections over the next 2 weeks. View it here.

It is also useful to see how teachers are applying some of their new learning with students. Helen attended an inspiring breakout from Sara Taylor which she recommends for all junior classroom teachers and has also tried out with her class. View Helen's reflection here.


What teachers are saying:

"Spending time with colleagues from my own school, the cluster and a range of learning environments in New Zealand is a wonderful opportunity to hear and see the great things that people are trialing and using in their schools" (Karen)

“A highlight for me would be the planning, preparation and presentation of our breakout with a member of my syndicate team. The planning and preparation process gave me an opportunity to reflect and highlighted how far we have come with our ICT PD...It was not just the tools that we were using that has changed but also how our pedagogy has shifted when planning... It was also personally very special to present at Christ's College (a lovely venue) in the same room where I attended an inspiring session in 2006. I would have never have guessed at that time that I would be presenting at the next Christchurch ULearn conference" (Stephen)

“The whole conference really got me thinking about how can I use my skills and knowledge and enthusiasm and passion to really enable my students to change the world!” ( Jo )

tags technorati : ulearn08

ulearn08 Reflections & Connections

Even before the conference started the impression was there were alot of first time presenters at a national conference contributing this year (including our own Felicity from Northcote Primary and Karen from Sunnybrae Normal, ably supported by Stephen and Helen - see their presentations here).

Through the conference back channels, twitter and during the actual conference it was wonderful to see and hear so many teachers sharing and supporting each other, receiving feedback on their conference preparation and tips and encouragement from those who had presented before. Having access to these online is invaluable and there is some impressive work and resources being shared, well done to you all. (see my delicious)

The technology is being utilised in ways that I find attending a face-2-face conference is quite a different learning experience for me than it was 4-5 years ago. For example can you follow this...

• I am attending the Unconference in Breakout 7

• Participating in a F2F with Dave, Ian and Neil

• I am also keeping up with the next table's discussion in the Unconference on twitter ettiquette through the conference website backchannel
  

• @heymilly is in another breakout and leaves a comment in twitter ( see below)

• @mumbleboy and Luke in Auckland see the link in my twitter response to @heymilly and join the conference backchannel along with others from around the conference.
  

Will Richardson commented in the opening keynote that before we can teach differently we have to be able to learn differently. As I left the Unconference that day I wondered how learning would be for me if I were a student at school today?

Thanks to Christina for highlighting at the Unconference - Te Awamutu - you have a message.

tags technorati : ulearn08

Haere rā Lynne

We said goodbye to Lynne yesterday at Team Solutions. Lynne has been co-facilitating the cluster with me this year and has become a valued friend and colleague. She is off to Qatar on Tuesday to work as an elearning facilitator and we will miss her but I know she will be blogging about her adventures.

When friends leave you give them a gift and that was just what I was doing when Lynne turned the tables and presented me with something to remember her by. I think this will bring a smile to the faces of most of you who know me...Arohanui Lynne ;-)