A lesson from Scandanavia?!?!

Posted by: Brett  :  Category: Learning Environments

An article in this months eschool newsletter grabbed my attention this morning “U.S. educators seek lessons from Scandinavia”. The article discusses some fascinating observations of schooling in Scandinavia and the results they are seeing after some serious changes in their education system over the past 20 years. So why the interest in Scandanvia? Well these countries are at the top of the results table of the international maths and science testing - http://www.pisa.oecd.org/.

What interested me here was the observations these American educators made about what seemed to be (by international testing standards) the leading education system on the planet. For starters, they do not start pushing academic content anywhere as early as we do here in Australia (or many other countries)

In all three countries, students start formal schooling at age seven after participating in extensive early-childhood and preschool programs focused on self-reflection and social behavior, rather than academic content. By focusing on self-reflection, students learn to become responsible for their own education.
….“the U.S. holds teachers accountable for teaching, here they hold the students accountable for learning.”

I have always questioned why we have prep aged students (5 years old) working away at desks for such a large percentage of the school day. Teachers in high school are constantly complaining that students do not take responsibility for their own education. Perhaps there is something to be said for instilling the importance of this at the beginning of a child’s schooling life. Furthermore, the article notes the importance of these early years where teachers

“encourage philosophical thought at a very young age. … Grading doesn’t happen until the high-school level, because they believe grading takes the fun out of learning. They want to inspire continuous learning.”

There is also no standardized testing, rather a focus on quality educators who encourage project based learning. All educators are very well qualified and highly regarded within society.

““My teacher” and “the teacher” are terms of respect, not only when used by the students, but also by the school leader or headmaster. The teacher is most often viewed as a mentor, someone who has both knowledge and wisdom to impart and plays a key role in preparing students for adulthood.

In Finland, for instance, teaching is one of the most highly venerated professions in the country—and only one in eight applicants to teacher-education programs are accepted. All teachers there have a master’s degree.”

The teachers in this system are free to develop more individualised learning programs for their students and are not given limitations from a over prescriptive national framework. There is also minimal filters on information services and teachers are free to have complete open access to online resources.

“Internet-content filtering in the three countries is based largely on a philosophy of student responsibility. Internet filters rarely exist on school computers, other than for protection from viruses or spam. As a school librarian in Copenhagen said, “The students understand that the computers are here for learning.”

There is so much gold in this article, it goes on to talk about their assessment and ways they develop a desire to learn in each of their students. The testing and “ranking” of students does not take place until the last couple of years of senior schooling. They don’t have constant testing throughout early schooling, they don’t take lessons during the week to “practice” for the end of schooling exams. In fact they do the opposite, yet they still top the international testing. On top of this it seems they have developed an education system where children enjoy, value and embrace opportunities to learn. When will we wake up and take notice?!?!? Too many students are stressed out of their minds or just don’t care. While we continue to stress the importance of standardised testing and “drill” students for the test - they will become more and more disengaged. It saddens me to see the piles of students standing outside a room preparing for an exam drilling each other and stressing over an examination of “stuff” that has minimal relevance to their lives and learning.

So what is it that brought about this change?

“The change occurred because teachers felt the system stifled them and hindered creativity in the classroom. One school in Helsinki, Aurinkolahti School, believes that learning should let children “have fun and know the joy of life.” Educational technology is used to create a community of learners who build knowledge together.”

When it comes to educational technology the focus is more on personal productivity than the equipment or “stuff.” There are NO Interactive Whiteboards, student response systems etc etc. They simply use the tools that help productivity and provide connectivity for learning. We don’t need the “stuff” (especially those flaming IWB’s), we just need to develop good educational programs. It is more of a philosophical discussion than it is a funding of equipment discussion. Here in Australia we are about to have schools receive funding for computers if their ratio is below a certain mark. The Government’s “educational revolution” is going to throw money at more computers and “stuff” without actually considering what it will be used for. There is no use having a bunch of computers when our system dictates the use of the equipment. Thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment and infrastructure being deployed so our students can type their WORD DOCUMENTS?!?!!?!?

Certainly recommend reading the article…. It is just a great read!! Now this would be my kind of study tour!! More to come I am sure….

Launch of our film and media course Podcast

Posted by: Brett  :  Category: 21st Century Education, Learning Environments

For those of you interested in how all this web 2.0 “stuff” can be used in the classroom and to help student learning, have a look at our ECsite Media website. We have kept the design nice and simple but it is a great way to deliver content and engage the students in different learning activities. We hope to launch ECsite TV soon - where we will podcast our own TV show all about student life. You can find us over at http://www.ecsitemedia.com

Collaborative Verse Competitive

Posted by: Brett  :  Category: 21st Century Education

Interesting concept was birthed today as I had discussions with one of my senior colleagues. He was asking me how our new film and media subject was going and if the students were enjoying the subject. Well of course I carried on about how wonderful it was and how students were engaged in the class. I continued bragging about how the students were working together and helping each other solve different problems to produce work of a high standard. We then headed down the track on how we as teachers can start helping each other and use each others skills to better one another’s teaching practice. My colleague doesn’t have the technical skills I do, but he has 20+ years of teaching experience that when combined could create something powerful and effective. So we have a plan….

He has a class next term about to study a unit on Theoretical ethics. At the end of the unit there is a in class essay exam that they all must write on 1 of 5 studied issues in class. Our plan is to break the students into 5 groups for the term and give them the mandate to create media content that will teach their particular topic. After 6 weeks they will present their media content to the class and we will have 4 weeks to study and discuss the issues for the exam. All content will be created by the students, I will teach the basic technical skills required to create a podcast, their regular teacher will guide them to the appropriate content and resources and the students will create the course work.

What is more unique than the technology integration is the fact that we are taking a group of year 12 students and asking them to be collaborative workers for the good of each other as apposed to the system that is encourages them to compete against one another. I am sure it is similar in many school systems around the world - But effectively our students are ranked against each other in order to receive a score for university entrance. All of the students will need to rely on each other to create quality study resources. I am really excited about what we may achieve here. It is an experiment and it may be crazy to experiment with students in their final year - but I am confident this will work and make others in our school stand up and pay attention.

On another note I have invited my year 10 media students to use the equipment to create study podcasts for any subject to share with their peers. Two boys have started creating study podcasts for mathematics. Will wait and see what else comes of that one.

The shortest blog post EVER

Posted by: Brett  :  Category: Learning Environments

Question from student - If I don’t remember this “stuff” next term can I say I truly learnt it? AHHHH Schools still don’t get it!!

Care to comment?

Creating an Effective Connected Culture - CHALLENGE YOURSELF

Posted by: Brett  :  Category: 21st Century Education, Learning Environments, Life as an Educator

Most ed blogs seem to be forums of brilliant practice and places where folk show off things that have worked and reflect on positive experiences. I myself do this quite often. However, today is different…. this post is all about my big STUFF UP today!! I often talk about my media class with great pride and excitement. Quite often boarding on boasting about how awesome the program is and how brilliant my students are. However, today I stuffed up…. I did everything today in class that I get on my soap box and scream against.

Let me set the scene - I started today by letting the students know that we were going to look at trends in advertising. I showed them a few clips from the documentary “Merchants of Cool.” After showing the clip I spent 30mins lecturing them on what the clip was about. I tried to engage them in conversation but just lost it and became the old school lecturer. I stopped at the end of the lesson and realised what I had just done was exactly what I can’t stand seeing other teachers do. I disengaged the students with a topic that should have been interesting. I couldn’t believe how I botched up what should have been an exciting learning experience. They all (minus 1 or 2 really polite kids) made it clear through body language etc that the lesson was awful.

My bragging about a connected culture in schools that should be changing the way we teach was all coming back to haunt me. I was such a hypocrite. I know we probably all have these moments. So what does one do to get themselves back on track…. I re-watched this video created by a group of Marco Torres’ proteges…. Digital students in an analog world….

So sit back watch, enjoy, and be re-fired like I was this afternoon….

2 new cool services

Posted by: Brett  :  Category: Fun and Techie, Web 2.0 and Education

Just signed up for two new (well new to me) web 2 services. First up, I had heard a lot about pownce for quite some time and never got around to playing with it. Pownce is nice and clean - much like twitter but with some interesting features. It allows you to add files etc to your messages, hence allowing your friends/followers access to your attachments. Also include a handy desktop client.

The second service which I am much more excited about is FriendFeed. This service allows you to share all your web 2 services (blogs, twitters, pownce messages etc et) all on the one page. Friends can subscribe to your feed page and see everything you are doing on all the major services from one handy page. Love the potential of this and can’t wait to see more people in my online network jump on board. So jump onto Pownce or FriendFeed and add me (Brettos).

Enjoy…