gail dyer

Getting the balance right is not really about curriculum. That is far too simple an explanation for the issue that is confronting all levels of educators from all around the world in the 21^st Century. It is about getting the working relationship between students and teachers in balance. Recognising there is a time to be a learner and a time to be a teacher.

It is easy to blame the curriculum and in fact it trivialises the difficulties we are facing as a profession. On an almost daily basis we are hearing and seeing evidence of lack of engagement by young people in the world of learning. For many young people the concept of education is changing. In their out of school worlds, with the aid of Technology, they are self directed learners; learning about things that interest them. They don’t like the force feeding of facts and the “test you to death methods” (Prensky 2007) of formal schooling.  Educational commentators worldwide are calling for our students to be encouraged to be participants in their education rather than passive consumers.

It is not the curriculum that has created this situation. It is the politicians, the bureaucrats, the number crunchers, the teachers who want to see evidence, in real terms (data), about how students are progressing.

John Morgan (Vision: Issue 04, 2007, Futurelab, p.10) quotes an RSA Report that says “we are still educating people for a world that is disappearing” and we need to            “promote independent rather than receptive learning”.

“We teach students to be passive, non thinking consumers”. Lee Bryant, Headshift, (Consultants to BECTA).

Another article in the same Vision, talks about “the space to innovate still seems enclosed by the thorny hedge of accountability”.

An educational leader, be he or she, an administrator or a classroom teacher, really has to be an honest risk taker to step outside the norm and try different things. If at first there is no evidence of improvement or in fact the trend is downwards it is far easier to retreat, beaten into the old ways. We need to remind ourselves change takes a long time, it will take more than one repetition before tangible evidence is seen. It is a risk to give staff permission to try different things. It is a risk for the teacher to let go of the absolute authority he or she have in their classroom.

But what are the skills our students will need to work and live in the 21^st Century? The QCA Futures group in the
United Kingdom analyses the kinds of workers employers need. They have found employers want the following:

“. . . people who are literate, numerate and have technology skills . . . people  who can build and maintain relationships, work productively in teams and communicate effectively. They look for problem solvers, people who take responsibility and make decisions, are flexible, adaptable and willing to learn new skills.”

The challenge is to have the conviction to abandon that which is unnecessary and develop that which progresses teaching, learning and achievement. We are living in an age of technology and there are endless possibilities for advances in teaching and learning. Abandoning or totally recreating curriculum is not one of them. Rewriting some syllabuses would be a positive; however, syllabuses are still necessary to provide guidelines for teachers as to what is asserted as needing to be taught. That is, except in the case of technology.

Employers want literate and numerate workers. Literacy and Numeracy are foundation subjects. They are the building blocks for all learning and communication. Nationalism and a need to know about the physical world in the forms of History and Geography are also foundation curriculum. There is an obvious need for Personal Development, Health and Physical Education studies. Science as a core syllabus is vital. Often Science and Technology syllabuses are co assigned.

Employers want people who are skilled users of technology. Why then this suggestion to abandon a Technology Syllabus?  

Technology tools are changing at an enormous speed and this will only become faster and faster into the future. Prensky (2007) postulates “it is a huge one time leap from the analogue world of our past to the digital world of our hyper-changing future, because of the speed of continuous change, future teachers will always be behind the technological know-how of their students”. Before a technology syllabus is approved to be rewritten it is out of date.

How do educators and syllabus writers get their heads around: email, ds lites, wireless technologies, psp’s, DVDs, interactive whiteboards, email, texting, instant messaging, Wii’s, blogs, wikis, the Wikipedia, digital cameras, polling devices, computer and video games, networking, peer to peer, social and community building tools, augmented reality, podcasting, GPS speed enhancers and so the list goes on and will continue to grow? How do they mandate which, where, how and what is to be used / taught?

New technologies for education are a constant and the speed of change is so fast even if a teacher wanted to learn about all of them it is close to impossible to do it effectively. To try and mandate a syllabus to capture same is just as impossible. The divide just keeps growing.

This digital divide can be overcome. The tools to address it are already present. Quality Teaching (QTP) strategies have been in schools, officially, for nearly five years. The skills required by 21^st Century students are easily catered for when teachers incorporate quality teaching strategies into their classrooms. The Quality Teaching strategies encourage the teachers to let go of centre stage and give more power to the students in order to develop their skills as independent learners. QTP promotes teachers working with their students to develop units of work, authentic assessment tasks and criteria for assessment, in other words quality teachers are co-constructors and co-creators with their students.

Using the QTP strategies teachers can use the technology experts they already have in their classrooms, the students. Teachers and students working together each drawing upon the strengths of the other. The teachers using QTP best practices and knowledge of curriculum requirements; the students their ability to master, use and apply technology fast and fearlessly when trying new things.

Together teachers and students find the balance by co-constructing and co-creating knowledge and in the process they develop their own technology syllabus.

 

MIT has been at the forefront of Technology Innovation for a long time now. Papert being the guru. Henry Jenkins and a plethora of game makers, educational technology tools, Logo, Robotics, AI . . . need I go on.

Trawling through blogs as one does when one has time I noted Derek Robertson mentioned a new program from MIT suited to game making / authoring. It is called SCRATCH.

It’s structure is not that dissimilar to Game maker 6.0 and functions in a similar kind of way suited maybe to a younger age group. A Logo like thing with the capacity to import and manipulate graphics of your choosing with sound and animation etc.

Our Year 6 students are quite accomplished game makers, players and animators I have asked a couple of them to critique SCRATCH and let me know what age group they think it could be used with and comment on what  they see as it’s main curriculum use. Stay tuned for their comments I’m sure they will help us in our evaluation.

Another observation is that it seems to perfom same funtions on the computer screen as the little Bee bots and Probots. It looks like it might suit ages 6 to 10, maybe younger for some really digital savvy bubs. We’ll investigate.

Couple of other things happening around games at Belmore South Primary School at the moment (inspired by what we learned from TLScotland’s Derek Robertson at the Consolarium). We have adapted what we saw to create programs of work  that are designed to suit our students’ needs and fit our learning outcomes using games’ consoles.

1. An infants  family group class consisting of Kindergarten, Year 1 +2 students is using the Playstation 2 with an eye toy to practice and enhance the students fine and gross motor skills. It will be interesting to note how they perform in pre and post test situations. They are buddying with a Primary family group of Year 4, 5 + 6 students who know how to use the PS2, this is necessary because the teachers don’t have the knowledge of their students in regard to the PS2:however, they can see how the PS2 can be used in the educational context to enhance the students learning experiences - Judi Leonard and Kim Pericles are the amazing teachers.
2. A Stage 3 class (Kim’s) are co-developing a PE Skills program. They are using the new NINTENDO WII to practice and develop the skills of tennis. The students’ prior knowledge about tennis has been accessed and it will be interesting to see how this project unfolds.
3. The Game Maker Pilot Project we worked on with the NSW DET Centre for Learning Innovation is being launced next week and will be available for other schools in NSW to trial. It is interesting to note that Jake Habgood has disappeared from Game maker site and Mark Overmers is now taking the lead. I believe Game maker is a good program.
4. Some of our Year 6 bloggers are now turning their hand to web design and will be working with younger students to ensure our website is up and maintained. Our technology committee agreed we would not have a website operational until; the students could run it. They are now able and it will be up before the end of term.

A cluster of 5 schools plus assorted experts and associates, are about to embark upon a project revolving around students making computer games of various sorts. I was reading John Connell’s BLOG and he asked the question when did “I” appear in the word project. He has caused me to reflect upon how we might keep “we” and “our” in our project. 

The schools to be involved cover the spectrum of Kindergarten to Year 12. In this range there is a diversity of pedagogies and approaches taken to student learning. Ideally by the end of the project new classroom practices and new networks will have been developed.

I have been reading Scardamalia (2002) on knowledge building networks. She claims that if communities of practice do not have an intentional goal of learning and producing knowledge they descend into “shallow constructivism”. She continues learners need to be engaged in activities at a level of deep understanding about why or what they should be trying to learn.

The purpose of knowledge building networks is to engage groups in producing their own knowledge. This is a profoundly
authentic activity. It would appear that it would be just as appropriate to use this methodology with young and inexperienced learners as well as with those who might be called experts.

The essential elements of this approach are:

• Learning is intentional

• Knowledge building is collaborative

• Learners are responsible for setting their own learning goals

• Ability to identify problem areas or areas of weakness

• Collaboratively determine the best way to solve problems as they arise

• Ideas and explanations are developed and shared publicly with peers

• Peers offer suggestions about, alternatives to and reflections upon ideas developed

• Through identifying weaknesses and refining ideas the group advances its understanding of the project

Focus must always remain on

• The ideas and knowledge being generated

• The tasks and activities undertaken are seen as important as long as they continue to be the appropriate tools for enabling knowledge creation.

It is apparent we could use a wiki or wikis to support students and teachers in their knowledge creation. Wikis lend themselves to supporting such knowledge creation if the group is highly structured with a shared learning goal. 

To make sure we are to move forward in our professional practice we need to keep Wengers (1998:269) words firmly in our minds.

 If an institutional setting for learning does not offer new forms of identification and negotiability – that is, meaningful forms of membership and empowering forms of ownership of meaning – then it will mostly reproduce the communities and economies of meaning outside of it.

Summary of insights / skills gained on Study Tour.

There needs to be a shift of power in the classroom BUT “moving old minds is difficult” (McFarlane:2007@ BETT).  

The most important change is to recognise that the students’ informal learning (out of school) needs to move towards formal (in school ) learning. Schools need to recognise that  students’ skills are appropriate and relevant in a learning environment. 

Key Phrases that have made an impact:  “support more learner / learner interaction to  move power from tutor to learner . . .  the wise leader might create space where learner and tutor feel comfortable interacting and learning from each other.” 

New technologies, outside the learning space are providing opportunities for interactivity. They involve:

• Choice
• Control
• Communication
• Communities

Concepts of creativity and originality are being challenged.

Space and identity are being re-defined.

The way we solve problems and raise questions is being transformed.

Citizens can build their own communities and networks online. 

In the 21^st century it is necessary to look at transforming:

• Curriculum to be about knowledge creation, collaboration, community building
• Pedagogy. Who teaches? Need to be authentic, immersive and reflective.
• Institutions need to be experienced personally to understand strengths and weaknesses.

Blurring boundaries between learning, playing, communicating, socialising and working.

 Learning is about relationships NOT IT. 

Are we adding new tech tools onto an old system , , ,  or do we need to create something completely new? 

Directions to be taken:

• Digital games
• Handheld technologies
• Online creative communities
• Managing face to face interaction

Web 2.0 and Learning

BLOGS

• creating content
• writing for pleasure support
• informal learning (digital show and tell)
• Personalisation
• choice / voice S
• elf esteem  S
• Sharing
• Reflection and review 

Wikis           

• Writing for an audience 
• Proof reading,
• fact checking  
• Awareness of different perspectives  
• Evaluation and discernment – issues of trust, ownership and authority 
• Social Construction and collaboration

Podcasts           

• Multimodal literacy
• Speaking and listening 
• Engagement           
• Accessibility   
• Lesson recording
• e-portfolio 

Games are one aspect of ICT that can have a very powerful impact on students learning to be effective citizens of the future.  From my observations of students at our school and of students in the UK the results are the same students are totally immersed and understanding of what they are doing. Games are:

• Interactive
• Pedagogically well structured
• Encourage interactivity and learning
• Active not for consumption
• Able to engender flow
• Totally engaging
• (some) are about storytelling

Three main approaches to games: 

1. Educators and/or game developers produce games for students to play and learn
2. Integrate commercial off the shelf games (COTS) into the classroom
3. Students build their own games, using specialist drop and drag software.

Most in classroom use and research into students making /
authoring their own games is in the primary context with children aged 9 to 12 years. These projects integrate the games based materials into the curriculum or are used to support and develop the students storytelling and writing skills.  We had the pleasure of meeting with Judy Robertson of Heriot Watt University and talking with her and her team about the Game Authoring tool they are developing for neverwinter Nights. We visited Ancrum Road Primary School in Dundee where the use of game authoring tools has been trialled. It was inspirational.

The project we have undertaken at Belmore South Public School, in conjunction with the NSW Department of Eduction and Training’s Centre for Learning Innovation is at the cutting edge.  

What’s changed for you?I did not believe there was much place for commercial off the shelf games in the classroom, after visiting the Consolarium in Dundee and talking to its Director Derek Robertson I am prepared to investigate this idea further. As a result of our experiences at the Consolarium Belmore South Primary School has a Playstation 2 with I-toy , a WII and several DS Lites with games. We will be developing learning programs utilising these consoles, recording and monitoring our findings as we go.

I am committed to the powerful nature of students authoring games and the impact it has across a wide area of the curriculum: literacy, science, mathematics. It addresses all aspects of the NSW Quality teaching model as well as many other NSW DET and Federal Priority Programs. I now believe that the only way to begin to prepare our students for the future is to teach them how to learn and that the most effective way of handling knowledge and content is through networking.  

The only way to make a difference as a leader is to gather a network of open minded principal colleagues (from both primary and secondary schools) and develop a knowledge creating, sharing network where our knowledge and skills are diverse and complimentary and we are committed to the vision of preparing our students to become effective citizens of the future. Quality pedagogy, ICT and games, as an element of IT, are pivotal to this process. 

The school leader is the lynchpin in any change. It is up to leaders to model and lead staff.

BETT 2007 was  4 days jam packed with all manner of ICT paraphenalia. What was seen, heard and felt covers a broad spectrum: exhilaration, excitement, challenged, stimulation, tired, affirmation, depression, disappointment, claustrophobia, freedom, overwhelmed, fascinated.

The majority of the seminars attended were well worth queuing for at the ticket desk as early as possible in the day.

Angela McFarlane’s analysis of the impact of technology upon education as being “disruptive”. She suggested Technology becomes disruptive when it moves the power balance  away from the teacher and into the hands of the students.

A fine example of how this theory has been used positively was shared at the Dfes stand by Dan Buckley and the crew who worked on the Islands of Scilley Project. It was a fine example of how the schools in this area moved the emphasis from the teacher to the student. Probably the very best practical guidelines as how this can be done to be found at the Show.

The emphasis in Professor McFarlane’s presentation and Keri Facer’s were both loud and clear. There needs to be learner to learner interaction to move power and responsibility from tutor to learner. Children should have control / say when it comes to their learning and know their contribution will make a difference.

Many students outside of school use the Web 2.0. They are used to making choices, taking control, creating, communicating and participating in a wide variety of communities on line. Much of this is adhoc.

To facilitate student control the social aspect of technologies could be used in schools to support learning.  As educators we need to learn from the best of what is happening in online creative spaces and apply these in the classroom.

This is a most frightening proposition for many educators. It is disruptive to traditional views of how a classroom should work.  

This is where I was disappointed and depressed about what I saw at BETT. It seemed that much of the commercially produced material were based on blackline masters, teacher directed, test oriented and a dumbed down curriculum. The presentations whilst colourful and animated showed a total lack of respect for the capabilities, capacities and interests of students who are digitally savvy. Then there were all the platforms designed to control information flow and determine what can and cannot be seen by students.

Don’t get me wrong there is obviously a place for commercially produced material of quality. The most refreshing innovative and exciting student centred software packages that were at the Show were the Shoofly Publishing Connected Curriculum Literature materials: Moon Buddies, Jack and the Beans Talk and Angel Boy. They are great stimulus materials. Anne Curtis and her colleagues show flair and an understanding of how to motivate young people. The Stage 3 teachers at Belmore South have been quick to pick up on this upon our return to Sydney. It is good to see Shoofly’s software  nominated for the prestigious upcoming awards.

The other software that was appealing is the Shakespeare Works package because it’s novel approach is designed to engage and stimulate students.

After reading an article in Monday’s (08/01/07) New York Times about Secondlife I realised just what a great time it is to be alive. It is exciting to think that colleges and universities are setting up campuses in this virtual world. The new generation of technology allows creativity, originality and fantasy to flourish. The online communities that are proliferating encourage and promote that which was once exiled to the headspace, fantasy and seclusion.Opportunities, dreams, fantasies and talents never realised because supportive communities and audiences did not abound.Keri Facer, in her Keynote Address at BETT 2007 talked about our concepts of “originality and creativity being challenged” and Angela McFarlane in her Keynote Address at BETT 2007 observed that products of Fan Production were “in most instances ordinary and at best awe inspiring”. How many of the “awe inspiring” of by gone days have gone undetected, unrecognised and unfulfilled, living in their attic room in a fantasy world without anyone to recognise and enourage them. Social technologies allow for empowerment and recognition. They provide support and encouragement in a world removed from reality where these attributes are mostly missing. Being one of those in the attic reading and writing avidly for no audience. Secure, safe and unthreatened and unheard I find my first excursion into blogging at once scary and daunting . . . but also exciting and liberating.