21st Century Educator

This week has been the week for news stories around the issues of internet filtering. First up, I read this article about the filter that McDonalds is placing on all its wifi access . Not such a big deal. Then I read another article that same day about how the NSW education department here in Australia is going to censor access on all student laptops. This article started to make me laugh…. With quotes like

“Our internet filtering is unbreakable. We have a huge proxy array that does all the filtering. We’ve just brought that in-house and the reason we have done that is we want much tighter control over it,” said Wilson (chief information officer for the NSW education department).

To add to this lunacy it has been estimated that the system will cost an additional 245 million dollars, which is on top of the 195 million for the original laptop plan. Therefore, more money is going to be spent on filtering than will be on “real” learning resource. Not a terribly smart plan in these current economic times!!

Then to cap it all off there was this little corker from the Australian Newspaper - Australia to have a national internet filter seen only in countries like China and Iran. Why on earth would we spend tax payers money on such a system? Besides that, who decides what is appropriate and not appropriate to view? The article suggested that “Compulsory internet censorship for all Australians could ban controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.” Of all the things to censor, these two seemed the most “controversial”?

How do we teach young people to discern and become analytical thinkers when bureaucrats think it best to play big brother with the greatest and largest information source available? This I believe is a marvelous example of destructive technology. Learning tools that are used to play big brother instead of educator and learner.

Some may remember the experiment I was running with a colleague and his class a couple of months ago. We were looking at revamping a class with the use of media and social networking. My colleague is an experienced educator who hasn’t had a great deal of time for technology use in his classroom. Back in April this year we had a lengthy conversation about the way I was using media in my classroom as well as social networking. He was intrigued to see how this worked and wanted to know if it could be done in his Study of Religion Class. SOR is a high school subject that is almost like an introduction to philosophy for high school students. They look at some great content from world view and different world religions.

The SOR students were studying a term of work on Ethicial issues in which they normally would learn about 5 key topics and discuss. Prior to this they had already studied theoretical ethics, much of which was to be applied to this study. The project concept was simple… Our aim was for students in groups to engage deeply into one ethical issue and then report back to the class what they discovered. With that aim in mind we set out to create some spaces for the students to express their findings and really engage in the topics. First up, I created a blog for each group where they were to blog and podcast about the issue. Each student was given a piece of stimulus material to help them think of an ethical issue they could report on. Each group then made a decision on the issue they would research and began looking for information. The second element of this was to allow the students to connect not only with each other and their teachers, but “real world experts” who could help them with their research and developing ideas. This was done over their blog, as well as a secure facebook group. The students all joined a facebook group where we could discuss the issues along with invite opinion from academic experts in relevant fields.

The project was a great success…. No that does not mean it all went perfectly according to plan. Some things worked great, some were a complete disaster. The great success was the outcomes (mostly positive) for all those involved. The potential of this project and where it can lead into the future also must be counted as a great success. Students were engaged and once pushed in the right direction achieved some great work. The assessment at the end of the unit didn’t change from the usual in class essay, but did show some great improvement by many students who normally struggle with the course content.

I will try and reflect more on this project as time permits…. However, I would like to leave you with one of the podcasts the students created after choosing the chocolate slave trade. Their stimulus material was Dr Zeus’ Horton here’s a who…. Where the repeated line is “A person is a person no matter how small.”

This podcast was a response to the movie Blood Diamond…

This podcast raised some thoughts around the issues of Genetic Engineering…

For More podcasts have a look at the students blogs…
http://www.ecsitemedia.com/sor (links on that page to each group)

Just had to share this quickly - At the moment I am sitting on the beach with my wireless 3G connection to the web and my laptop watching Dave Warlick live blog from the NECC conference in San-Antonio Texas.  I am joining in the session with questions and feedback to the conversation - almost as good as being there!!  What a great way to learn!!  Dave has just posed my question to the audience

I informed Dave where I am at the moment and he just told the audience - then added that this is what Classroom 2.0 is!!  Well put Dave - this is the way we learn best, my environment with the tools that allow anywhere anytime connection and conversation!!

I have just left a note with Dave letting him and his audience know that I will be posting a run down of a presentation I am co-presenting in 2 weeks time all about an inquiry based learning approach using social networking and multimedia.  I will have this up later today…..

Tags: NECC08, NECC, NECC2008, BrettMoller, Moller,

Well you would have to have been sleeping under a log for the past week to not have heard about Apple’s new iPhone 3g. I myself was waiting in anticipation for the release of the much rumoured upgrade. Being in Australia we have not seen it come to our shores yet (minus the few 1000 unlocked ones), so it was exciting to hear that Australia will be receiving the new device on July 11th.

After watching the WWDC Keynote address I was particularly interested in the educational applications for this device. I have embedded a youtube clip of the two educational applications that have been developed. Both these applications are for higher education, but both demonstrate exactly what is possible with learning on a mobile device.

WWDC Medical Apps for iPhone Demo

While I am sure the device will open itself up to some wonderful learning applications, I think there is more to it as a learning device. The addition of GPS and high speed access anywhere anytime is truly a reliseation of what has been somewhat of a innovative educators dream for many years. I remember back when I was finishing my degree in 2001, talking about this idea of anywhere anytime learning and always being connected. We didn’t really understand that idea as wireless technologies were just not to the standard we see today. While many of these technologies have been available in similar devices for a while now - none have seemed to have been as functional and as easy to use as the iPhone.

So what will be the greatest challenge if this device is embraced as a learning device? Well probably that very thing. This device is a very open device and it allows levels of users access never really seen before. How will our schools manage this? Will we lock it down or just ban it all together? Or will we have a serious discussion on how we can create a learning culture that embraces the amazing possibilities of such a device. Gone are the days of schools being able to manage what students see at school. It is now too easy for a student with one of these devices to view and access any content they want. Therefore, it is obviously going to be something that we as educators and schools will have to embrace and decide how we will guide our students. Once again this is a school culture issue and probably another example of the desperate necessity for schools to embrace the change and begin developing ways in which they will handle such technological change.

I can see this device being used for incredible educational purposes. Having access to learning resources in your pocket, being able to connect with experts in a number of different ways all from one device. Mobile blogging has finally been demonstrated as something that will be easy to do with this device. Imagine having a group of students on a field trip all reporting back to another class at school using a device like this. I guess it is time to wait and see how these technologies are utilised and if they will be embraced.

Late addition - Second life running on the iPhone

Been down for a while…. Due to some domain issues and technical probs that I kept putting off I think the site has been down for almost 6 weeks. Now I have killed my google rankings I guess it is like starting afresh. So as I work on some further posts here is some food for thought that I came across while reading David Loader’s new book.

notschool.net is an interesting initiative that is making some awesome headways in shaking up the traditional education system with some great results. I highly recommend checking out the site and having a read through some of the media coverage this initiative has received.

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….

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

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?

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….

After recently reading Wes Fryer’s post, “Advocating for differentiated content filtering” I thought I would start writing some ideas about an effective 21st century school IT culture. I have entitled these rough thoughts “Creating an Effective Connected Culture” as I believe the ideas of filtering content can be a catalyst to help create an effective culture in our schools (the connected community). I have limited these thoughts to just three headings and will probably aim to write more as folk comment and provoke the thought patterns.

1) Trust is the basis of this connected community
2) What is appropriate content is clearly outlined to all within the community
3) Being connected is to be viewed as a tool for learning.

Trust is the basis of the connected community
Trust is an amazing concept that we are so poor at developing in schools. We use trust as a tool of blackmail or bribery. “If you work well inside the classroom, I will let you go outside to work tomorrow.” That is not trust, yet it is the concept of trust that we embed in our students minds. In this instance the student is thinking – “Great I will shut up this lesson and pretend to work so I can hangout with my mates outside next lesson.” I recently started a new subject here at school with a bunch of new digital equipment for film editing etc. I started the year by turning this idea of trust upside down. My students were given 100% trust with everything. I explained to them that they were to use the equipment, and explore the new avenues they could with this gear as often as possible. In fact I even requested to have an open wireless access point for the students in my class. We have not had any equipment damaged, no offensive sites have been accessed (we are monitoring everything) and students are coming to the classroom at lunchtime begging to come in and explore further. One student abused the privileges last week and before I could approach him to discuss what he had done wrong, he found me ready to apologise, asking that I didn’t punish the rest of the class for his mistake. First time the student in trouble has found me before I found him/her. ☺

These students know that we can track what they are doing online (happy to share the technical if you want to email me) and they know that the tool is for learning (something I will discuss further in point 3). They have unfettered access to the online world. The key here was an open discussion about the online world and what was appropriate and inappropriate. We talked about access as a multi-facet tool. It is a tool of learning, a tool of social interaction as well as a tool for a range of harmful acts. We were open about the ability to access inappropriate content, talked about our responsibilities as citizens of this community and even dreamed a little about what it would be like if no one accessed offensive content. From this discussion we introduced the idea of trust in our class (our small community) a sense of relying on one another to do the right thing. My students found that there is power in having wide-open access. They know I monitor what they are looking at and there will always be accountability. Ideally for this concept to work I believe these principles would also need to be shared and encouraged by and with the parent community.

What is appropriate content is clearly outlined to all within the community.
This is a very hard task in a post-modern society that lives by the philosophies surrounding ideas such as – do whatever is good for you. It amazes me that we teach such ideologies in our schools then try and determine what is appropriate and inappropriate through the use of content filters. For me this is a challenge that becomes easier as I teach in a Christian school. For us we have clear guidelines on what is and isn’t appropriate. Students who come to our school understand that and therefore have no choice but to agree to the guidelines set in what is appropriate and what is not.

But how does this work in a general sense, because it isn’t always that simple even in my school. We all come from different backgrounds so therefore we create different levels of appropriateness. Is it ok for a younger student to have access to videos of medical procedures? Is it ok for the senior biology student to have that level of access? From the day students have access at school I believe we create in them a sense of ownership in the resources that access content. We must encourage them to think about what true learning is for their stage of development (socially, academically etc) and or areas of study. Discuss with your students what is appropriate content for the learning in your particular subject or class. My film students know that youtube is an invaluable resource for our class and that the abuse of access to that site only ends in the privilege being restricted. I don’t tell my students that they can’t use youtube to search for highlights from last week’s basketball games. I simply encourage them to use the resource for that in their own time. I have a small group of boys who come in at lunchtime to do that very activity. However, in class they use the same resource to further their learning. My students have learnt what is appropriate content and what is not. Here is a suggested activity for you… Get students to suggest youtube content that is appropriate for class, appropriate for leisure time and never appropriate. Give them some ownership in the discussion.

Ideally I would begin this by educating the entire community as to what it feels is appropriate content and what is not. We need to get rid of the control nazis that lock down our systems. Yes there are obvious sites that should be blocked but blocking a site that has some great content for learning simply because it also has a percentage of content that is obviously inappropriate is like saying we should never enter a 7-11 store because they sell some items that are inappropriate. Or I should never buy a car because it has the ability to go over the speed limit. Yet this is what we do with a site like google images or youtube.

Being connected is to be viewed as a tool for learning.
David Loader in his recent book “Jousting for the new Generation” identifies a disturbing trend in the use of computers in education. He says that the device that has the potential to be an amazing learning platform has become something very different.

“The computer is such a wonderful tool for personal learning. Then I had dinner with an old friend and he left me wondering. He agreed that the computer can be a wonderful tool, but is that what it is being used for? He told me that the primary use many in schools make of the computer is for delivery of content, assessment of students and increasingly for surveillance. Suddenly what had been heralded as a paradigm-shifting, personal learning tool has become a vehicle for platform teachers and Big Brothers.” (David Loader – Jousting for the New Generation)

Through our desire as teachers to control we have locked down the tools. We have not allowed the power drill to go beyond the 1st speed. There is still another 4 speeds on the dial but we are not comfortable to see what that can do. Our students already know what it can do and the more we lock it down the more frustrated they will become (and I think the more tempted they become to abuse it). Just have a read of a student blog over at iThink “Unnec*ssary Censorshi*” (Love the title – nice and cheeky!!)

Once again this links back to my point earlier about involving the community to make these decisions once they have been educated on the issues. Our “business client” mentality is destroying cutting edge education and learning because our “client” is ill informed and not educated on the issues. When will schools have the backbone to stand up to the community and let them know that we are professionals and demonstrate why these areas need to change? Involve the community and educate them on these issues so we don’t have to face the idea that we are some how responsible if a child accidentally or deliberately accesses inappropriate material. As long as the school is doing their best to block explicit sites that are obviously inappropriate, I believe they are doing their job and are actually taking off the padlock and letting learning occur. Today I had a student doing an assignment where he had to put together a travel itinerary and cost it up etc etc…. Our main server then blocked him because the site he was trying to access fell into the inappropriate category of “Entertainment” (it was a tour guide website). If someone stumbles across something that is inappropriate why don’t we turn that into a learning experience instead of worrying what the parent may think and blanket blocking everything?

There is obviously much more that can be said here and I plan to pan these ideas out further. I write this at the end of a busy day here at school. I welcome thoughts and feedback and look forward to an interesting conversation.