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 :-)