John Heath - Amazing article...

I have just finished reading the Wiki by John Heath and the article is amazing....I found myself immersed in the different theories and ideas suggested by many but put together so well by John.

I found myself relating to so many of the scenarios I don't know where to start...

Probably the most notable is, as I have mentioned I have changed jobs recently, and it was, as John suggests a move from an unsupportive environment to a supportive environment of early adopters of new and innovative educational technology. In terms of Convergence of resources, I was in a situation where the hierarchy was not supportive of my efforts to establish technology based education or even constructivist pedagogy into the classroom. Despite the excellent results I achieved and the high rating of student satisfaction and course growth...Therefore, the innovation was limited to my classroom.

Frustrated with the insistence on holding back the move towards this new technology, the extensiveness (as John puts it) was not there and so I was left with little option but to find a new and more innovative worklpace.

This is just one example of my life experience being clearly identified through JOhn's witing. A very well written wiki which summarises much of the course (I think!).

Chris :-)

Visions 2020: Transforming Education and Training through Advanced Technologies

I have only just started reading this document, but already a quote of an old proverb is worthy of mention:

"A vision without a plan is just a dream. A plan without a vision is just drudgery. But a vision with a plan can change the world."

I have worked in 3 different schools in my professional life, and I have experienced all 3 - I am now ready to change the world. What an inspirational quote, once fully understood...

Some other thoughts are that there seems to be a strong emphasis on the virtual environment...I am not sure if a virtual environment is how we should be thinking, as it tends to allow us to think about how what we do now, will be done in the future...rather than thinking about how things can be done in the future.

There is an element that what I am suggesting in some way negates the current (and well tuned) practices, but I am not suggesting we throw out the old and adopt the new, but when we are thinking about the future, we should not limit ourselves to "mimicing" the current in order to place the new...

Thoughts for now...

Chris :-)

Catching up...many thoughts...

Well it has been a while, but much water has passed under the bridge...

As I work through the readings and keep a track of the postings (I am finding mobile email VERY handy!) I am finding my mind drifting along a number of roads at the same time...

One fork in the road is following a path of school culture and support for not only emerging technology, but for real technology use in the classroom. A number of the other participants in the course are discussing problems with an unsupportive executive....how hard does this make teaching productively(!?!) or effectively using technology?? VERY difficult is my answer...

Now I find myself in a very supportive school, how different am I finding my teaching, or at least the support for teaching using emerging technology? It is so different, we are encouraged to find new and exciting ways of teaching and using the new tools available to us...

The other roads I am travelling down (and finding it hard to choose which path to travel) is which emerging technology should I choose to make my facilitated page about? the three technologies I am contemplating are:

1. Wikis - Although not new technology as such, but I would like to make use of Wikis to fill a void in my teaching style where I don't give students enough written documentation...I have started by presenting short web pages in Moodle, but find they are stale and dry...I want to explore using Wikis to build up the formal side of the courses I teach.
2. LAMS - (http://www.lamsinternational.com) Learning Activity Management System - Developed by Macquarie University in Sydney, it is a learning management system that focuses on the learning sequence - or simply "The Lesson" sequence. I think that the product that is offered could integrate very well (educationally) into Moodle. Some problems with this, is that I don't think the demo site has full functionality...and my school has had technical issues with integrating into Moodle in the past...they are open to installing LAMS, but are cautious.
3. YackPack (http://www.yackpack.com) - here is an emerging tool. I have played with it a little and can see value in using it in my setting, but am not sure if I have the resources to implement it fully or properly and so am not sure of the value of it in teaching programming (my main teaching role in the school). But if it is useful for teaching programming, then it is surely useful for teaching a wider variety of subjects/courses.

So, there is my current problems, at the moment I am leaning down the YackPack as it is further "out of my depth" as an educator and so will probably be a be a better one for me (and possibly others) doing this course.

Regards,
Chris :-)

Technology is easy: People are Hard

I loved this quote from Gage (2002,p4-5) and this is so true of my work environments over the years....at times the technology has been hard, but once overcome, I realised the people were not going to be so easy...

The other side to this is that I see a number of teachers who make is easier (some early adopters) but they are not there to do well, but to make life easy...these also fit into the "hard basket", but are harder to identify...they tend to be the lazier ones...I have found anyway....

Chris :-)

Module 1 - Readings and posts to discussions.

In the forum on Module 1.2, I commented on my experience in working with video editing. I made the comment which resounds very strong now...

"As someone who learns new technology reasonably quickly, and with a lot of patience, it highlighted to me the frustrations of teachers who were weaker with the use of technology but were experiencing technology failure. The reduced effectiveness of their teaching was significant, and was pivotal in their trying new things in the future. This changed my perspective as an IT Manager later in my career to be most supportive of teachers who try new technology in the classroom."

It only helps to focus my thoughts on how, as an early adopter, the useability of new technology is such an issue - how much more for those with less confidence and technical ability!

Next thought comes as a by-product of the recent election (last weekend) and how the new Govt plans to have Education Transformation (which has a nice ring to it!) and part of the plan is to give access to ALL students in Australia access to a computer and high speed Internet. The link is back to the notes for Module 1:

"ICT Devices are being used to empower individual freedoms and abilities and as such have a great potential to support educational reforms based on the ways individuals and groups are able to interact with information and co-construct learning and knowledge".

It is obvious that the current govt was thinking along the same lines...put the hardware in the people's hands and this is part of the way towards educational transformation.

Anyway, that is the main thought so far...

Starting FET8611...

Well it has been a good start to this course...having to log in to so many different systems and set myself up....Moodle, knowledgeGarden, Skype, IM, Elluminate and Blogs. I have yet to do RSS feeds (although I use MS Outlook extensively and know it is a simple thing to do (In fact - Really Simple! ha ha) - but have not done it as yet! And I don't know about this "tagging" yet, however, I use FaceBook and I think it may be a form of it...

Anyway, some thoughts as I set up these tools...

Email - All fine, I deal with many daily so this is no problem (but VERY happy that I can get forum posts sent to my home/work email address! Go Moodle!)

Moodle - I have set up a Moodle installation and now use Moodle on a day to day basis, so this is fine.

Skype - Again, I use this regularly, from speaking to my wife in another room, to some of my students and my brother in Ecuador - so easy to set up.

Elluminate - Have just looked at this concept for my online course, and was thinking this would be good to use (and they just offered Elluminate Lite for free to K - 12 schools!) Not so simple, but fine. I had a demo conference with myself this morning...and I worked fine!

knowledgeGarden - now here is something new to me...a Wiki (I think!?!). Although there were great instructions, and a really good screen cast from Peter, and some really good comments already by other students...this one did not come naturally....

I understand that the language is simpler (than HTML) however, it would be better to have something like a HTML editor rather than having to put the code in. I wanted to make the text as "active" as possible, and I did, but it took time...more time than I planned...so didn't get too far...so that's my htoughts for now...will keep writing as I go.

Overall, now that I understand what the course is about, the whole scenario is perfect! Timing (during holidays - a good time to play!) and ready to finish off the setup my courses for 2008. So a reminder to be more constructivist is GREAT! I plan to use much of what we do in this course...thanks!

Chris :-)