On Monday morning we went to the NECC 2009 Exhibitor’s Hall. It was huge, vast, expansive . . . so American.

We were on a mission to get a Promethean and SMART t-shirt.

They made it so hard fill in forms, show a magazine bit of a hassle really!!!! Never did get the SMART shirt probably a Freudian moment.

We were caught in the rush of the crowd, jostled along, not sure where we were going.

Suddenly an arm appeared out of nowhere, a blue t-shirt was thrust into our hands . . . a BIG sloppy PEARSON shirt.

People looked at us as if we weird when we got on the bus this morning. “What’s with the t-shirt?”

Well you know what we’re not so stupid.

Standing in the endless snaking Starbuck’s line this afternoon a hysterical woman ran up to us offering congratulations and these two cute little ipod shuffles . . .

for wearing our PEARSON’s t-shirt.

Cameras flashed, celebrities for a minute, congratulated by our fellow coffee addicts . . . what a buzz!

Gladwell’s keynote addressed THREE BIG IDEAS he wanted all attending NECC 2009 to understand it is important for students and teachers to understand them.

1.  WORK HARD

Put in the effort and success will come your way.

2. RESILIENCE / PERSEVERANCE

It’s okay to make mistakes so long as you learn from them.

Trying harder brings greater reward and develops in the individual a respect for things that are difficult and require perseverance to achieve.

3.  EXPERIMENTATION / EXPLORATION

Learning is not linear. There are many paths to the same place. Gladwell quoted Gayleson who believes there are two kinds of visionaries / innnovators / geniuses.

a.  Conceptual – those who have bold ideas and change the world view quickly eg Picasso.

b.  Experimental – The innovator who explores through trial and error, makes mistakes and through perseverance finds a way to genius and innovation, eg Cezanne

Key to learning from mistakes is the quality of feedback given. The feedback MUST be

- Timely

- Targetted

Technoogy is a wonderful facilitator for feedback eg. twitter, facebook, SMS etc.

It’s not the “where ” of learning it is the “how”. Students need teachers who are energetic, enthusiastic, and creative. Teachers who promote learning and make it meaningful.

The video clip is from an excerpt where Gladwell is saying the American Education System is great for the top and the bottom.

I do not necessarily agree with the writer’s conclusions; however, some of the ideas presented provide a very good argument for researchers, educators and testers to take a deep look at the strategies being used by young and old alike to access information on the www. 

The work of Jakob Nielsen, according to Bauerlain, “the guru of  web page usability” was cited. Nielsen has spent since 1994 gauging habits and screen experiences of computer users. He charts “people’s online navigations and aims, using eye tracking tools to map how vision moves and rests”.

Nielsen’s research reveals people scan 100’s of pages using a pattern vastly different from any learned at school. They read in an F pattern . . . extremely fast and only one in six reads a web page linearly.

Let’s face it the old linear way of reading, the emotional comfort provided by fiction books, the rigid content of textbooks are losing their relevance in the burgeoning context of the internet. Books are never going to be irrelevant because there always has been and always will be people who love the comfort and emotional attachment to the printed book. However, the speed, the amount of knowledge and diversity of interests are better catered for by the internet.

It is imperative that researchers and educators join forces to determine the most appropriate strategies needed by all people to be discerning, critical users of the internet as both consumers and creators.

We can’t keep teaching using 20th century methods, educators must adapt to the 21st century . . . almost 10% of the century has passed us by and still there is resistance to this concept.

The Horizons Report (2009, p.6) “call for formal instruction in the key new skills including, information literacy, visual literacy and technological literacy”, but what are they?

The text of the www is not static it is in a constant state of updating. How and what do we teach to cater for this fluidity?

What does it mean to be a reader or even a literate person in the 21st century?

Should we be opening our educational minds to findings from Nielsen’s research and incorporating some of his web usability ideas into our practice?

Back in the classroom again but this time it is a luxury … an aid to set up the Macbooks and working alongside Kim.

We have a presentation to get together before Friday… with a new class.

Having the class for the first 45 mins of the day I couldn’t resist doing a bit of research. It was a fascinating exercise and the students were wonderful.

They were prepared to explore with me what it means to be students in the 21st Century and then either singly or in groups record their thoughts.

The thing that I found most interesting is that it is not only we the educators who need to make a huge paradigm shift to become 21st Century learners so do they.

How can students conceptualise what 21st Learning might look like if they only have 19th and 20th century models to refer to?

What views do they hear from home in the media? 

It was then that the questioning needed to take a different tack. We then explored what they considered to be the most important aspects of their schooling.

They feel they can communicate and collaborate really well. We talked about man going to the moon and especially about the Apollo 13 mission where creative problem solving saved the crews life.

Some suggested it is necessary to take risks and try doing things in different ways. Tony and Deon pointed out that if you do the same thing all the time nothing changes, nothing is exctiing. Doing things differently is exciting and interesting.

The boy, on the whole, were more animated and more engaged by the notion of risk taking, stepping outside the box, being creative and using technology to support the creativity.

The “c” Generation

connect, communicate, collaborate, create

The conference today was an interesting experience. The session I presented went well . . . it was a compilation of the previous few blogs. The blog was simply there as a reference point for the Case Study presented about Belmore South Primary School.

Kim presented a really good practical session, so much work and then the Internet connection let her down. At least the whole presentation is on her blog.

The venue was excellent Fairfield RSL

Ms Fanggiadae’s Stage 2 ’s used them to promote thinking and problem solving skills.

Mrs Pericles Stage 2/3 class used them to explore the Oceans from a scientific and literary perspective.

The DS Lites had been available to students during lunch time in the Library; however, for most of the teachers the DS Lite was a brand new experience.

The way the teachers approached the technology was quite different to the students in Stage 3E.

At the end of 2009 the SRC discussed what they wanted to achieve by the end of their primary school education in the context of our school vision: 

Creating a path to the future.

Their ideals were expressed in the following personalised statements.

 I am a successful learner.

 I expect to:

•    Achieve
•    Enjoy learning
•    Learn how to learn.

I am a confident, creative individual.

I expect to:

•     Be challenged
•     Take initiative.

I am a responsible citizen of the world.

 I expect to:

• Be informed
• Make positive contributions

 Goals for the day

 1.  Personalising our school vision:            Creating a path to the future.

Staff in groups will deconstruct the following school exit outcomes and reconstruct them so as to put the student at the centre of learning,

eg. “I am a successful learner and I expect to:

The exit outcomes our students will display when they complete Stage 3 are:

• successful learners who expect to achieve; enjoy learning and how to learn;
• confident, creative individuals who will be able to live fulfilling lives; and
• responsible citizens who will be capable of making positive, informed contributions to their world.

Discuss in allocated groups.

2.  Develop an understanding of 21^st century learning in a global world

View the video which focuses on the simple steps designed to develop a caring creative space suitable for 21^st learning / teaching. The following concepts are to be examined:

Competition  Collaboration  Co-operation  Creativity  Communication

 Staff were asked to 

• reflect upon the video, think about their classroom, teaching and how they might create a 21^st Century classroom, with student learning in a global context at the centre.
• make notes, begin to think about setting some goals to be discussed in team meetings where they will be asked to develop personal and professional goals for the term / semester / year.
• talk about the video with their group.
• Create a Y chart on what a 21st century classroom will be like., eg, what it LOOKs, SOUNDs  and FEELs.like?

 3.  Exploring personalisation of student learning.

       What is it?                        Why is it important?                     How will we achieve this?

Last Friday I witnessed a master teacher working with students across all ability levels in class groups from 1 to 6. All the while under the spotlight demonstrating to an audience of teachers.

What a challenge, not knowing the students, where they are in their learning journey and having but an hour to engage and motivate them to produce a piece of writing.

The strategies used were:

Lots of talking, playing with words and literary devices expecting different / silly ridiculous enriched language, sharing ideas and work, role playing, thinking quietly and aloud. Playing with words, sounds, sentence structures and language structure. Much acting and doing the unexpected.

Giving students the time to think and develop their ideas, encouraging each idea that is different and novel. Non judgemental / joy at the ideas presented by students. Valuing all that was contributed, creating an environment where students have the freedom to take a risk and they are encouraged to have courage. Providing sentence starters for those who need them and challenging questions for those who need to answer them and need the higher order stimulation.

Writing was a group process, more powerful for sharing with the audience. Inevitably the ideas and writing presented grow with input from others making the entire process and product richer for the experience provided.

The teacher took writing from a solitary process to a social one. It is shared, discussed, deconstructed and then reconstructed to produce a new and richer piece of work.

Parallel thinking, that is, the thinking moves from the one to the group. The thinking becomes visible and through the power of the group the thinking has grown, expanded and ideas have been built upon to create new thinking.

Students of all ages were challenged to explore and to participate. They were encouraged to be part of the scene, to make decisions and to be in control of what happens in their story in the creative process. Literary conventions were introduced as the presenter felt the students were ready. All conventions were introduced seamlessly and as a natural part of the session presentation.

Role playing took the lesson to a different level which encouraged creative talking, listening and questioning by the students of the students after the presenter had scaffolded questioning and thinking. The role play began with 2 and grew as the presenter felt it was possible to include more and more students. The students, especially the older ones were deeply engaged, involved and in character.

The role play was used to move beyond physical description of the environment to exploring characters and relationships using questioning to stimulate character exploration and story line.

The initial part of the lesson was based on a static visual. When the visuals were actually used it was to add further enrichment and develop storyline, characters, comprehending, thinking about and inferring from the visuals.

The presentation was structured from beginning to end and followed a predetermined path to keep Tim Rylands /the teacher on track. The path gave the teacher the freedom to follow the needs, interests and abilities of the students in order to achieve outcomes. As with all good lessons it ended with a testing of the understanding of literary devices addressed.

The game MYST was used as visual stimulation, a springboard to launch ideas and wonderings by a quality teacher.