During some research I have found copies of the withdrawal forms for each state.  It is your right as a parent to take your kid out of these tests and send a message to our government and schools that this is not the type of educational reform we will tolerate!!

Exemption forms can be found on the following site, along with more information.  If you truly love your kids you will not allow our Government misinform and mislead you.  There is more to come on this disaster and we need more parents, teachers and school leaders confronting our Government and questioning their motives!!  Does our government love our future generation or do they want nothing more than cheap vote grabbing!?

Gillard has been quoted declaring the Myschool ranking site and the NAPLAN test a great success based on the 2.7million hits to the site.  Ummm….  since when did hits = support!?!?  Gillard’s policy has been informed by those who created similar disasters overseas such as the United States.  We have warnings coming our way from all over the world that standardised testing has failed miserably the world over and causes more harm than good.

The facts remain that our fear of league tables is nothing compared to the damage this does to our education system.  Schools are forced to see these tests as the be all and end all and therefore make poor decisions in their programs.  Such decisions as teaching to the test and replacing extra curricula activities with test taking “practice” are common place in schools.  It demonstrates the great dumbing down of our education system – ultimately ripping of our kids.  These tests have never demonstrated real improvement as a result of the data from tests.  Gillard and the clowns driving our apparent education “reform” need to forget about what maybe popular with misinformed parents and begin to take advice from experts who have the best interest of our kids at heart?  May we continue to drive enough media attention so our parents can be informed and take steps to vote against this stupidity!!

Let me know what you think…

So first blog of the year….  Not sure if you have heard, but here in Australia we have recently had our elected representation (Federal government) launch their brand new fancy education website www.myschool.edu.au It was the brain child of our deputy Prime Minister and Education minister Ms Julia Gillard.  This site is worth a look – it basically gives everybody access to the standardised testing scores of each school in the country, allowing anyone to compare schools.  Our Government believes this will help parents make the right choice of school for their children and will help schools compare themselves to similar schools and learn from them.

So to start the year I thought I would post a letter I would like to send to our Deputy leader and receive some feedback before sending it.  I would like to thank some twitter friends for their thoughts on this topic.  Please read my draft letter and comment.  I will send this off in the coming weeks.

Dear Ms Gillard,

I would like to thank you and your Government for the recent launch of the MySchool website.  This resource has helped me as an educator and a parent realise that I live in a nation that thankfully has access to important statistics that can help me make educated decisions about where I work and where my child should go to school.  Your efforts to provide us with information of this nature will surely help citizens of our nation make one of the most important decisions parents everywhere will face.

The genius that has been displayed with this concept must NOT stop here Ms Gillard.  I would like to suggest that the Government continue moving forward with this concept while they are on such a great run.  Please consider my proposal for the MyMP.gov.au website.  Think about it Ms Gillard, you could provide a resource that helps me as a concerned citizen and voter understand my local member of parliament and so many other politicians in our nation.  I would like to have access to you and your colleagues academic transcripts, your attendance in parliament, your average number of bad hair days, fashion disasters and most importantly the number of babies kissed in shopping malls during the most recent campaign.

I believe this level of in depth analysis of our members of parliament will provide as valuable criteria for making a decision of representation as the myschool site does for choice of school.  Just like the myschool site, the myMP site would help citizens make decisions by looking for the schools that had more green than pink in the key.  You see I don’t want to be represented in the parliament by just anybody.  Voting is quite a tough decision and it would make life so much easier if we just had a resource that was so nicely colour coded to help make this decision.

Your commitment to providing such an in depth analysis should continue.  All of life’s decisions should be able to be made by simply looking at a colour coded chart of such in-depth statistics.  In fact why don’t we select two days every year where every citizen sits a test that measures their understanding of what their local MP is doing to improve our society.  Furthermore, just like the suggestion from the creators of MySchool, if any MP’s are shown to be performing poorly through these tests they could “learn” from other MP’s that are doing better even if they were opposite sides of politics.  Just because you are seen as opposition doesn’t mean you won’t help each other learn?!?!

Ms Gillard you must continue providing information like this to our nation.  I look forward to hearing you and your colleagues thoughts on this proposal.

Regards,

Concerned Citizen

So why not give me a few thoughts to add to the letter after taking some time to look over the myschool.edu.au website.  Oh and for those who don’t know our genius of a deputy and education minister….  Why not have a look at this clip I found of her.

]]> http://blog.brettmoller.com/2010/01/30/a-letter-to-our-education-minister/feed/ 5 http://blog.brettmoller.com/2009/10/10/top-iphone-apps-for-educators/ http://blog.brettmoller.com/2009/10/10/top-iphone-apps-for-educators/#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:53:43 +0000 Brett http://blog.brettmoller.com/?p=309 Spent some time over the past few months thinking through iPhone projects we can work on in our school next year. Over time I have collated the apps that I think are making my life as an educator more effective and efficient. This is a list I want to build on as I discover more useful applications. The list is not a list of “educational” apps, it is more a list of apps that help me in my daily life as a teacher. This is in no particular order just a random collection of thoughts over the past few months.

1) Calendar… Sounds boring but it is a life saver. Once you have this puppy linked to your exchange server at school or iCal server there is no missing meetings and appointments. I have had phones and PDA’s in the past with similar features but they have never worked. The key with this app is it’s ability to sync with the calendar services on your school network. Meeting requests, reminders and appointments all just push through seamlessly without me doing anything special!!

2) Tweetie… So not everyone is a twitter freak like me, but the usefulness of this app and the twitter service is amazing me more and more each day. The ability to crowd source so quickly and easily absolutely anywhere is a lifesaver for me each week. Free assistance on any issue from using advanced editing software to teacher recommendations on particular software or class activities!! All of this depends on you creating a network of worthwhile friends and colleagues, but once you achieve that there are some awesome advantages to an app that gives you quick and easy access to a wealth of knowledge!! Starting next term I am starting a project with 1 class to follow the a twitter feed of class information (more on that as it develops). (My twitter name is brett_moller)

3) Ping… Oh ping is an amazing push messaging service that I can see going nuts. Best of all it is free to download and free to use (basically). Push messages is just like sending an SMS to your iPhone buddies without the crazy telco charges. Push messages work over wifi or cellular. Each message is around 2Kb of data so there is no going over your data limit, unless you send 1000’s of messages a month. I see this as a great way for teachers and students to communicate. So far I have used this more as a social tool – but as more and more colleagues are on board I can see this becoming a great tool for connecting and communicating. (My Ping handle is Molski)

4) In the same category as ping would be AIM (iChat client) and Skype. The potential of these apps as collaboration and communication tools is great, however, we have had some interesting technical obstacles to get skype working 100% within our school network. While I was in Hong Kong earlier this year I participated in a conference call to a meeting back at school with skype on my iPhone. I was on the ferry on my way to a school visit off the main island, connected to the free wifi on the Hong Kong ferries participating in a meeting back home in Australia.

5) Evernote… Oh my this is an amazing tool that is so simple yet so powerful. Evernote is a great note taking app that syncs to your account which can be accessed via iPhone, web or desktop. Finally all my meeting notes, class notes, assessment of oral presentations are all synced, backed up and easy to access. Your notes can be private or made public. This is a great tool as it also allows me to share notes from class discussions with students on a public page. My evernote feed for my Film class is in our class LMS page and often contains text notes from class discussions, copies of workflows, even basic voice notes and pictures can be shared their also.

6) iDisk… For all you mobile me buffs iDisk on the iphone is a must have. Simple access to all my documents and important files on my phone is just so useful!! I can’t remember the number of times I have been in meetings where someone has questioned something and I have been able to clarify with direct access anywhere to my important files and folders (obviously I have all my work documents on my iDisk)

7) OmniFocus… Expensive but well worth it for the disorganised and very busy teacher. I have struggled for so long to manage projects and basic tasks. With this app you can easily setup projects and tasks that need to be completed with basic steps and reminders. The app has a desktop companion which synchronises with your iPhone. For me this is the best productivity app I have ever used. I like the way it lays out projects and lets you setup and schedule tasks.

iExpensit… This is a great app for keeping track of departmental budgets. With different budgets that I take care of it is great to have something that helps me keep track of what is and isn’t spent. Always good to keep your school accounts staff happy with you!! I would love to see a expense app or budget app the synced to a web service so it could be shared amongst other staff. Any suggestions?

9) Wikipedia.. At your fingertips anywhere this is just priceless!!

10) Voice Recorder… I am constantly using class discussion and debate in my classes to help students form deeper meaning and understanding of issues. The ease of voice recorder to capture those priceless conversations is just an awesome thing!! Often I grab a conversation and with minimal mucking around I have the file on my computer submitting to our podcast server. Next step for me would be podcast capture for the iPhone!! App to capture and submit media to your podcast server!!!

Folk who read this blog know my personal and professional opinions on IWB’s and if you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed my new # tag – #IWBcircus…. Must we be inendated by insulting and pathetic attempts from technology companies. Anyone who tries to tell me that I should use technology to make my job “easier” is assuming that I am in this profession for myself. You certainly don’t enter teaching for the money and you most certainly do not decide that teaching is a menial task that should be “simplified” by some device. It completely disregards the years of study and constant up-skilling by professional teachers to make sure they are engaging their students and making a difference in their lives.

Besides the second rate marketing attempt at dumb teachers – I was amazed that this company has found people who are now declaring that technology like “Student response” systems are making a difference in student learning outcomes. Are we really trying to convince folk that turning the classroom into the set of “Who wants to be a millionare” will really engage and benefit students? I do not understand how well educated colleauges will fall for this rubbish!!

I have quoted much of the work done over at “Educational Insanity” – in particular the critique of a recent research project funded by Promethean. This morning I sent it to some of my staff who have been keen on IWB’s in their area of teaching as a way of starting a good conversation as to how we would use these devices if they were ever purchased. Much of the response I got back was along the lines of it just being another tool and how it must be good as “so many teachers” are using them and love them!! This also started a great conversation on if we could not have the same arguments for any peice of technology, and if we should just ditch the lot of it and go back to the “good ol’ days.” Surely there are credible critiques on all educational technology research?!?!?!

Thought I would post part of my email responses to these folk…

My argument is simple – just because someone likes teaching with it doesn’t mean it is educationally beneficial. Number 1 argument is putting the technology in the hands of the learner – not only the teacher. Their world is these skills…. An IWB is a replacement for chalk and talk – if someone uses it in another way that is engaging and demonstrating educational value for the $$ spent then that is great…. But I am yet to see it – I have visited the schools that promethium say are their schools of “excellence” (in fact I worked at one!!) and their excellence is judged on how many $$ the school spent with the company!! (I make this judgment purely on observations on how it changed teaching and learning outcomes).

A critique of the methodology is actually a critique and questioning of the educational levels and benefits. The research methodology is called into question – hence indicating that any claim of educational benefit must be questioned and further investigated.

As for the bring back the “good ol’ days,” No one can successfully argue that post chalk n talk fails to improve education levels or outcomes. The research is there and quite convincing – 1 to 1 laptop programs have stood the test of time and are making a change in student engagement…. Are they giving our kids a better shot at the standardised test system? No – probably not – in fact it could be argued we are disadvantaging them. If you want that type of education find a school that will teach you the test and you will get a good result at the end of school. You maybe completely illiterate in the commercial reality of a connected world but you would have got a good school exit mark!!

IF someone wants to send me research on 1 to 1 or a critique of the research I would love to see it!! IWB research fails when it tries to justify test results improving due to the implementation. Teachers will love IWB’s because it ticks the box for them that says they must use ICT’s – It Keeps the bosses happy, but at the end of the day they are still teaching chalk and talk!! No one jumped up and down and told us that changing all the chalk boards in the school to whiteboards back in the 80’s and 90’s was going to improve test results!! Maybe someone should have done some research? Because whiteboards were so much nicer and fancier than those smelly old chalk boards!!

The school day starts and I stand at a door waiting for a group of my year 9 students. They walk to me with down turned faces – Hang on you guys I have just had this awesome meeting that is exciting me about some innovative changes to education… How dare they be sad and miserable!! Then I realise what it is – they are lining up for a practice testing day for a series of Year 9 Standardised tests in a months time. Oh so innovation starts the day but reality smacks me in the face. I am in somewhat of a confused state as I line my students up in alphabetical order and make sure they have a HB pencil and a rubber. I am thinking – Only if the bureaucrats that push these tests saw what I saw this morning!!

I leave my students as they start their test and head off to a prep period. First up I search for Gary Stager’s thoughts on standardised testing – Ah Gary will give me some perspective on this and make me feel ok about my disappointment in what I just witnessed… Here it is www.pencilsdown.org – Perhaps I will start an Australian version!?!? So I twitter – “Students practicing for standaridised tests today. Greatest abomination in ed. Can’t wait 2c the stir when I don’t allow my boy 2 sit them!”

I quickly spent some time catching up on mailing lists and receiving answers to questions I had about some software. Of course I “Pay it forward” by helping a few other folk with issues I can solve. Finish that task off making a few controversial comments on issues people are discussing…. Stir the pot a bit and engage in some critical thinking about my much loved profession.

I left the emails there and went off to a committee meeting to discuss the technical progress our IT team are making on our systems. All positive talk and some great problems solved. Walk back to my classroom determined to finish the day on a positive.

Rainy lunch time… so students want to get into the computer lab. In come my students ready to do something that just topped my day off on a high….

Students at MLC Sydney who were advanced users of Second Life offer me and my students a tour of Skoolaborate and a basic tutorial on how to work in Second life. Myself and 1 other student log in and begin a tour – gradually more and more students in the class want to be a part of this (remember this is lunch time). I drop out of the tour and get 5 more students “in world” for the first time. I sit back and just watch with great joy. My students are now collaborating with students at MLC in Sydney, as well as students in Canada and the USA. This is interesting stuff – they are suddenly glued to problem solving their way through this virtual world. Ben one of my more enthusiastic students wants to start chatting with everyone in world – the voice chat isn’t working…. He doesn’t give up…. He begins a tutorial with the students at the other end on how to setup a skype conference call. So now they are all chatting away like they are next to each other at school. The lesson continues in world – “Hey great idea on the skype conference Ben” I hear on of the girls from MLC say. Ben replies with “No worries, now back to how to build buildings.” The collaboration continues…. More and more students are getting on board and working out how to interact in this world. I walk past another one of my students who is starting to build pyrimads, while another is looking at a virtual movie hall someone made. I hear a yell “Hey sir!!! Let’s have our movie night in world later this year!!” My response – sure thing but you have to organise it mate – “Sir, of course I will – like you know how to do this stuff!!”

At this point I am seeing the potential just flow out of this project…. Other teachers walk in watching my students work away – Ben has to head to his next class, but he is too excited about what he is learning…. Runs to his teacher and negotiates a deal so he can stay working with the students in Sydney. He comes back to the room and doesn’t leave for another 2 hours. Never before have I seen a group of 15 year olds get so excited about a problem solving activity. These students were engaged in high level thinking and problem solving – REAL WORLD STUFF, for over 3 hours straight!! Only reason we stopped was because I needed to get home!

So I am now finishing this crazy day reflecting and posting…. I have just received an email from a student….

“Dear Sir,
Today was awesome. Can’t wait to get to school tomorrow and do this again. I am thinking of asking my history teacher if I could build a replica of the Egytian landscape in Second life as a part of my assignment. What do you think?”

Ah yes the day finishes as it started…. Innovation and excitement followed with reality smacking me again – Unfortunately, this student probably can’t do this for his assignment as it wouldn’t fit under the “appropriate assessment task” criteria for a senior subject. However, we continue to fight the good fight…..

Wow what a day!!

Massive thanks to the Westley Field and Students at MLC Sydney!! Thanks for taking us along on this journey. Just over 2 months ago my students had never experienced a class where they had access to computers every lesson – let alone this type of activity!

So with this and much more on the cards for 2009 I thought I would start the year with a blog listing my aims and goals for 2009.

1) well number 1 has to be to blog more. I have allowed myself to fall behind on this site and often start a new post and never get around to finishing it. If you let a blog sit too long stagnet ot will quikly die… So 2009 is about striking things back up again!! That is the first thing I want to change.

2) I am very keen to start an educators podcast bringing together a group of leading educators regularly to discuss issues around learning technolgies. Something that can become a resource, a discussion forum and place to share experience with one another. If you think you would be keen to be involved please leave a comment and I will be in touch.

3) finally I am keen to organise my online world – all those web 2.0 services that I have signed up for an have resources stores at. It is quite a job to get these things organised and properly setup but once it is done you can start utilising them the way they were intended to be used.

Well here’s to a great 2009 – all the best to evryone and I look forward to
Connecting with you all!!

To finish look what I got for Christmas -or new year’s eve to be exact….

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

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….

Sounds familiar to the reasons why we buy the latest gadgets….. We spend 10’s of thousands of dollars on the latest gadgets so we can be seen as being leaders in education. When in actual fact we fail to prove how any of this money being spent has improved teaching and learning.

In this country we are sitting on the cusp of possible revolutionary change in education. We have a new Government proclaiming we are about to have an “education revolution.” Folk at the conference last week were excited by this and were talking about the discussions to have laptops in the hands of students and teachers as positive and exciting potential changes. However, the skeptic in me can not see a bureaucracy really making a positive change. Why???? Well our education system needs change, but change that is headed by risk takers, people who see the need, know the how and are willing to do what it takes. Governments don’t like the idea of risk, they look for what is popular and change in educational thought is not popular. What is popular is tests, standards being met, declaring that no child will be left behind…. All the crap that gets spun by Government PR campaigns that aren’t worth the paper they are written on. In fact the change we require in our schools will not be popular, it won’t provide photo opportunities for politicians. It will require people that are willing to take a risk, stand up for what is right, make mistakes, learn from their mistakes and hold the needs of teachers and students as the focus of all that happens.

About a year ago I met a school principal who was intrigued by my willingness to express my opinions so publicly… I felt uncomfortable for a moment, thinking he was about to tell me that what I wrote was trash and didn’t do me any favours. In fact it was quite the opposite he was impressed that I was willing to take a risk and put my thoughts out there, and express the disappointment I had with different aspects of education. He encouraged me to continue as it was this kind of activity that encouraged him to seek what his staff were feeling about the profession. He continued to tell me how he ran his timetable each year. He sits his staff down for 5 minutes each and discusses where they feel they could best provide for the school and students. He then asks how the school can help them with PD, class structure etc etc. He then allows the staff to design their own teaching timetable. Actually allowing staff to design their timetable was a massive risk for him….. what if he couldn’t deliver? What if they needed more maths teachers and not enough people wanted to teach maths? Well he promised me that the risk was always worth it, and that it changed the mindset of teachers in his school as they could see they were valued and that the school cared about them as people and as professionals. If he couldn’t deliver on a teacher’s request he would negotiate and work them through the issues, often giving them extra support in areas they were not confident.

To me this didn’t seem like a big risk, but to the principal he knew what the consequence would be if he couldn’t deliver. What inspires me about this is that the attitude here is that while taking this risk may cause a number of problems, the eventual outcome is a change in culture that will be a long term benefit to the school community. The title of a great book I read some years ago sums this all up…. “If you don’t feed the teachers they will eat the students.” You feed the teachers by listening to them and rewarding those who have desire to take risks that will make them better educators and the school a better learning community. We need students to become people who are willing to take risks, yet we create an environment that does the exact opposite.

Unfortunately, I spend these holidays disenchanted by what I have to go back to. What was going to be exciting and potential for great change has been squashed by the system that suffers from serious tunnel vision. Our schools have been taken captive by Government requirements, timetables and other administrative items…. We refuse to encourage creative, risk taking behaviors and go to a system that tries to put everyone in a box. We work in a people business and think lastly of people, we proclaim that educators change lives, yet make sure that everything stays the same. Because I am someone who is capable of teaching mathematics I get given more maths classes…. Nobody seems to worry about the fact that my talents and abilities lie elsewhere. Why??? Because the system needs a maths teacher, the timetable needs a maths teacher and maths teachers are hard to find you know!! Since when does timetabling dictate teaching and learning? I realise there are administrative areas that are painful and hard, but seriously, must we destroy all creative thought that could possibly deliver a better result and generate a system that is dictated to by mere administrative task and procedure? Oh but I guess “If it don’t makes sense they’ll do it!!”

For now I thought I would share this video…. This is a true blast from the past…. The Commodore64 commercial from 1984. As soon as I heard the jingle I had flashbacks to my childhood!!