Teaching Generation Z

Our annual CEGSA conference is underway and being hosted at the fabulous ASMS (Australian School of Mathematics and Science) here in Adelaide. For a small scale conference, the line up of keynoters and sessions is pretty good. Here’s what unfolded today.

Opening Keynote - Martin Westwell, Director, Flinders Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century,
Flinders University. “The Future Of The Mind: how technology changes the way we think.”

My key takeaway from his presentation - video games do hone specific skills in students but should education be including these in the classroom or is our role to focus on other skills that are also valuable but less likely to be part of the students’ lives.

I went to a very good workshop run by Pam Thompson on classroom blogging. Check out her class blog here and give her a shout out on Twitter.

Chris Betcher delivered a great keynote after lunch based on the conference theme of “Learning Is A Conversation” and gave a great big picture view of the PLN concept and the key tools that can be utilised.

Key notes - “It’s not what you know, its who you know!”

So, if learning is a conversation then the more people you converse with then the more supercharged the learning. Showed an opening example from Sheryl’s blog where three educators in Texas hooked up to another in Winnipeg, Canada as part of the K12 Online Conference organising committee.

How to explain and sell what an online PLN is until you dive in and experience it. If you get a large enough group of people, then it is possible to create wisdom from crowds. You need diversity in your network, but you need independence. You also need decentralization _ related the story of how Linux got started as an idea of one person, assisted by decentralized individuals contributing. Final factor is aggregation - but have to beware of the echo chamber. Not much learning if everyone agrees about the same ideas. Best learning happens when there is conflict.

My key takeaway from his presentation - It is hard to explain and sell what an online PLN to educators until they dive in and experience it.

I had two presentations in the afternoon - one with Peter Simmonds where I did a basic re-run of my parent info night on Student Blogging and another which ended up being a ramble about starting up one’s own PLN. It sort of flowed on from Chris’s keynote and used the contributions of the educators who added comments to my Kickstarting A PLN post of a few days ago. Thanks, guys! Hopefully, you all get a few more subscribers out of it and a few more voices to add to your network.

Day two tomorrow, and thankfully there will be no candid birthday pics.

It kind of bugs me when I read posts like this and I have concerns about the thinking behind posts like this and this. But before anyone thinks I am taking potshots at these worthy and well meaning folks, think about my point of view here…

… where if face to face is such a big deal, why bother reading and interacting with someone who you are almost certainly never going to meet? Isn’t that the whole point about the potential of social media? Connecting to new people, new ideas, collaborating on the basis of shared interests - it doesn’t need a f2f meetup to make it all “real”, does it?

My chain of thoughts started last year when this sentence from a Steve Dembo post created an itch in my brain:

Warlick looking around the room during the first session and commenting that he was sitting in the middle of his aggregator!

I know that my aggregator would be impossible to ever assemble in one room. I then read a brain teasing post from Ryan Bretag that spawned a comment that has evolved into this post. My parting sentence there went like this:

The way I see it, edubloggers (or tweeters or ningers) are all parts of a very complex ecosystem and how we interact with each other and the conversations we have without ever meeting are more important to re-shaping our worldview and impacting the students and colleagues we work with.

Then last week, I read this post from Lisa Parisi and almost left a comment. Don’t get me wrong - I really enjoyed and valued her reflective post. There were only a few sentences there that tie in with this topic.

I knew going to NECC that I was most excited about meeting face to face people in my network. What I didn’t realize was just how important that face to face contact is. Jo McLeay is someone I follow in twitter and communicate with at times. But meeting at NECC got us talking about a collaboration. Now we have a plan for a really cool project that will fit in nicely with our geography unit in the fall. I doubt this would have happened without meeting f2f.

(Full disclosure - I have actually met Jo McLeay f2f. But it didn’t alter my perspective of her because she is such an authentic writer.) But my thoughts were not coherent (maybe still not) and then Lisa left a comment on my blog and I thought any comment from me might come across as being inconsiderate and dismissive of her point of view. But essentially, it was the same thing that really bothered me. There seems to be an extremely high value placed on a face to face meeting with someone in your network. I’m just wondering if we as adults are struggling with a new paradigm shift - from the f2f workplace (known as school) to the real world where people can and do communicate and collaborate without ever meeting in person. The paranoia in my mind is fuelled by the dawning possibility that maybe online networked educators will place a higher value on the writings, ideas and resources from someone they have “actually met f2f” and ignore others. This was confirmed by a worrying comment on Lisa’s post from Susan RoAne, author/professional speaker (her description, not mine) who wrote:

Your enthusiasm and energy are palpable. As a former teacher, I read your blog with some envy. During my days in the classroom, there was no internet to connect us before we met face to face with colleagues who were strangers.

As author of the forthcoming, Face to Face: How To Reclaim the Personal Touch in a Digital World, you validated the premise of my book. With all our online, digitals options, connecting in- person is in-credible.

So, the whole purpose of the internet is to connect people who will inevitably meet face to face? That would make global collaborative projects for students kind of pointless, wouldn’t it? Maybe, hermits like me only deserve an aggregator of under a dozen feeds.

Anyway, sort of proving my point just in time, this Tweet from Dean Groom popped up and sort sums up why I think that placing that there is a problem with over-emphasising the f2f interactions that evolve from our networks. For me, meeting someone who I “follow” f2f is the cherry on the cake but it is definitely not the actual cake.

Like Chris Betcher (but to a potentially much smaller audience), I am planning one of my presentations for our annual CEGSA conference. My (somewhat pretentious) title is “Connected Global Professional Learning” and I have 45 minutes to convince some South Australian educators that the best place to learn in a professional context these days is online.

I plan to ask whoever’s in front of me, “Who’s in your Personal Learning Network?”

I also want to offer the most useful way to create and maintain an online PLN. As part of my plans, I want to show the 2006 model which for me centered around my blog, reading other blogs and commenting. This diagram shows the methodology I employed to great success.

I would propose that a 2007 model would have involved the use of a tool like Twitter or Ning, or a combination of both with blogging. Blogging isn’t quite as vital in this model especially if you can find the ideal Ning community - Classroom 2.0 is an outstanding example of this. Twitter also enabled people to gain a sizeable network quickly without a big blog presence - an example is West Australian educator Russel Montgomery who posts at a quality blog without a huge Technorati dent, but has incredible reach with his Twitter network. (If you’re reading, Russel, this is a compliment!)

My conundrum starts when contemplating a 2008 model. What would you recommend as the most current way to kickstart a PLN?

Believe me, you’ll be credited in my presentation. (Even if more people will read this post and hopefully comment than will be in my session!)

This post by Cindy Barnesley ties in nicely with this recent news article about the Americanisation of everyday Australian English spoken by young people today.

Cindy writes:

Accents and idiomatic expressions have a powerful appeal and no less so than in Australia, which has its own particular linguistic “flavour”.

The article points out that our unique use of the English language is being changed by the “prestige” of the American way of speaking as seen in movies, music clips, sports broadcasts. Not only the choice of words is changing but the actual pronunciation according to Professor Roly Sussex, a linguistics expert who points out:

“We’re now hearing DIS-tribute, RE-search and CIG-arette quite regularly. This is an American pattern we are starting to pick up and follow.”

Add to that the fact that we appropriate and use so many phrases from American culture and it means that phrases as found in the Aussie Slang Dictionary could be cultural oddities from the past.

Personally, I think the cartoon show The Simpsons has a lot to answer for in the speech choices of Australian kids over the past decade! When we had an exchange teacher from Colorado at my school, she spent the year describing her life back in the States and having it immediately referenced to an episode involving Bart, Marge or Homer by her students.

The demise of classic Aussie sayings like “drongo” and “fair dinkum” has a lot to do with relevance. Cindy’s post quotes the huge influence that a diverse immigrant population has had on our culture. In my own classroom, a significant number of my students hail from a Greek Australian background - using well worn Aussie phrases often produces looks of puzzlement. And why wouldn’t it? These are kids of second generation Australians who spent their youth conversing in one language in the playground and then switching back to a mother tongue at home. Enter the era of the internet and while the Aussie accent is probably going to survive for a while longer, what is uttered using that accent is becoming increasingly globalised by the most dominant English speaking culture in the online world.

Sucking stubbies on a stinking hot day might be replaced by draining bottled ales and taking a screamer at the footy might be replaced by the slamdunk on the court. Unless, I’m totally mistaken and have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock!

Image: ‘Stubby Holder‘ www.flickr.com/photos/36975105@N00/226552339

I was hoping to get this up last night so that attendees at my presentation at ALEA08 could access this post as a form of online handout. Edublogs was playing up so that foiled my plans somewhat. So, if you were at my session and have checked back now to see if I was true to my word, I hope that these notes and links are useful. Because my presentation featured student work that I don’t wish to share online and contained unscripted demonstrations along the way, I have trimmed the slidedeck down somewhat. I did not get through everything I planned as presenting on a less than solid platform threw the alignment of my loan Teamboard out somewhat. I’d also like to thank my presentation partners in Rod from Era Publications (who invited me to participate on the topic of interactive whiteboards) and Matt from BSS, who brought in the Teamboard and the short throw projector and ensured that all my technical hitches were down to a minimum. Two very cool independent South Australian companies - without any multinational connections or pretensions!

My Abstract:

USING INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARDS AS A LITERACY TOOL

The Interactive Whiteboard has emerged as a popular tool in classrooms all around Australia enabling the use of digital resources for student learning. This powerful technology allows the teacher to use multimedia, the internet and literacy-based software as part of their literacy program in new and innovative ways. This workshop will showcase some of the ways an experienced classroom teacher has used the IWB in his classroom over the last three years and how his practice has changed along the way. You will see examples of how the IWB can be used for explicit literacy skill teaching, how the interactive components can assist the understanding of concepts and ideas, how the IWB can be a focal point for the modelling of problem solving and the use of key information literacy skills and how the embedding of multimedia (images, sound, animations, interactive activities, video) can enhance student engagement and relevance. Finally, see how the IWB becomes the vehicle for students to take control of their own learning, creating and directing learning opportunities for their peers and using the connection of online tools (read/write or Web 2.0) to reach beyond the physical constraints of their classroom.

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My presentation notes (edited to make sense and including links to resources referenced):

My presentation will try to explore the potential between a custom technology tool, the iwb and literacy in the classroom. But first in the spirit of new modern literacies, I’ll introduce myself using an idea from University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, using 4 image slides.
What about the iwb? Let’s consider the tools at most traditional classroom teachers disposal - whiteboard or chalkboard, teacher’s own handwriting and illustrating skills dictate the quality of delivery of content or concepts, some use of OHP, photocopied sheets, exercise books with occasional access to computer suites or pods. Meanwhile, students have started accumulating their own tools as well - mobile phones, USB drives, ipods, SD cards, laptops
all adaptive tools with learning potential but not necessarily serving that function in students’ lives. Interestingly, use of these tools are mostly involved in some forms of literacy - visual, digital, musical. Teachers are playing catch up but
technology has started to creep in for teachers - overhead projectors, laptops and sometimes data projectors. The iwb is a specialised education tool - two of the leading companies SMART and Promethean, have education focus - it is not a sideline.
How does the iwb change your classroom? iwb introduces digital content and multimedia, allows teachers to upgrade their presentation standards, content can be presented, altered, manipulated and annotated before being saved as a file. This file represents flexibility - flexibility for re-use, sharing, improvement but … it is no guarantee of improved teaching. It is my experience is that magnifies teaching practice - good and bad.
The jury is still divided on their overall effect on results -
“Whiteboards fail the ultimate test: they don’t improve children’s test results“
“Many pupils have been turned into “spectators” as teachers use the technology to create faster and more complicated lessons“
My personal journey began in July 2005 - with the iwb installed in my classroom. I also had the pressure of learning to use this tool effectively in my classroom as well as leading out for five other teachers involved in the initial rollout. I started like most teachers - using the iwb as a digital ink version of a whiteboard. It took time to become familiar with the most commonly used tools (pen, eraser, highlighter, typing, reveal, fill bucket, handwriting recognition) and how to save and retrieve files. I eventually started to use some of the more complex tools (ruler, timer, camera) and created flipcharts to help run the school day, also starting to use the objects from the library and sorting through the pre-made resources. I started to spend time creating flipcharts to be used in my own English lesson - trying to incorporate interactivity with digital worksheet activities. (I showed my Apostophes flipchart as an example of my practice at that time.)
Defining interaction and interactivity is actually an important discussion to have - best summed up in this presentation by Jason Denys. One of the key points that Jason makes in this presentation is that iwb is a tool and it is the pedagogy chosen to use with that tool that will make the difference.
“I’m so over flipcharts”. - Maria Paladino, 2006.
It didn’t take me long to realise that creating detailed flipcharts was not a sustainable way to go. If the goal is tactile interaction, drag’n'drop interaction then online is the place to go. So many resources - digital texts are easier to manipulate. Teachers have been well known for remixing content - fair use comes into play as long as not shared beyond the classroom. I started by using Google to locate resources. “IWB and literacy” - Google search pulls up many repositories of resources. A better place to search is del.icio.us - social bookmarking to save, tag and share literacy and iwb resources.

del.icio.us search for iwb and literacy
http://del.icio.us/wegner/IWB
http://del.icio.us/wegner/interactive_whiteboards
http://del.icio.us/wegner/iwb2.0

There are many forms of writing suitable for use on the iwb - explanation, persuasive, poetry, reports, instructions. One example would be to get your students to write in the style of a newspaper article. Show the task, head off to a link and use the annotation tools to discuss, dissect and plan for the students’ own writing. iwb is also useful for work on specific English skills - punctuation, grammar, handwriting or word knowledge. An important focus is information literacy - searching (visual search engines like Boolify, Quintura and KartOO) can be easily and explicitly demonstrated.
Interactive Whiteboards make the teaching of Multiliteracies easier - text, still images and moving images. Text - big books, blogs and other social media. (Era link, Project Guttenberg, Wordle) Still images - photojournalism (Boston Globe Big Picture) Images tell their own story - or do they? (My flipchart using images for communication) Images that can be easily sourced and used are user-generated and shared images from sources like Flickr (flickrstorm, flickrCC) Moving images - this can include advertising, short films, user-generated media, digital stories and presentations. I put them all together to teach a writing genre - fables. (Text, animated versions & video)
iwb as vehicle for student led learning
Showed a student’s completed fable - The Grass And The Tree - the iwb was ideal for sharing his work with the class. Interactive construction of learning - “Can We Make A Difference?” - construction of understanding on a concept, Year 5/6 class seeking to answer the inquiry question using Port River dolphins as the local example to create understanding from - this is a flipchart constructed between teacher, librarian and students over the course of an 8 week unit that involved the use of an excursion. I finished the presentation showing examples from my classroom that fitted under the description of interactive student initiated learning.

As usual, feedback welcome either in the comments or use my contact form on this blog.

Blogging at me.edu.au looks like this to me …

Blogging here is more like this …

Image credits: Beehive by TLVshac & a room of one’s own by jspad

dear ken,

Do you like the way I started this post by using one of your trademark writing quirks?

Anyway, it has taken me this long to pull together some bits and pieces since your post that got me thinking. I went and did what I threatened in the comment. I took your techno-ripe idea, ping-ponging its way via the network from California to Pennsylvania to South Australia, twisted it around to suit my Year Six classroom and have a few samples to share.

Check this one first…

The goal was to advertise their upcoming Personal Research Projects (starting up this week!) in one minute with the assistance of four relevant adjectives combined with four skilfully chosen CC images. Some kids did well with their adjective choice, their excellent speaking skills but struggled to break away from the obvious connection with their chosen topic. Not to worry - these are 11 year olds after all. I was happy about the attribution and thought put into this one.

Others were not as fluent at the speaking part but their image choice was positively inspired…

And if you’re wondering what four adjectives would sum up your own fine country from an Aussie child’s perspective, try this ad for the topic of the USA.

So, ken, I did much of what you suggested. In between the demands of your young family, just know that your influence (and so many others that I read and connect with) resonates in my classroom half a world away.

And that still blows me away.

I really enjoyed reading Clay Burell’s most recent post. As happens so often in my online reading, it ties in with some of my thoughts as I’ve just completed writing Term Two reports for my class and for the first time in twenty plus years of teaching, I’ve had to assign grades to each learning area from A to E. This stems from a mandate from the outgoing Federal Government that despite union opposition is now compulsory across all schools in Australia. I blogged about this 18 months ago when it seemed imminent but it took until this year to become an unescapable reality. Clay really pulls apart the history of grading as a tool for assessment in schools and makes some very valid observations that question the structure of schools worldwide. This point about class size ties in with my day today involved in industrial action when my union is asking the government (as well as improved salaries) for reduced class sizes:

So complete is our acceptance of factory schooling, we consider classes of twenty “small” when, I would argue, even twenty students for an hour is a recipe for poor learning - come on, do the math: one teacher teaching twenty students for an hour equals three minutes of individual attention maximum.

Anyway, over the last three years I have moved from the 2006 report card system where I had to write descriptive comments on each learning area (8 in all) with larger paragraphs for mathematics and English and finish it all off with a 200 word summative comment at the end about attitude to learning, organisational and social skills. This was close to 1000 words of writing for each student and with a class of 30 in most primary classrooms, most teachers really felt the pressure during this part of the year. Parents loved the individualised comments about their children. Feedback indicated that they really appreciated the work put into the reports - but as one teacher said to me, “That just about killed me. My private time was totally consumed by report writing. I’m glad it’s over.”

With the Federal Government putting the pressure on schools late in 2006 and into 2007, we adapted our report cards to be ready if needed for the A to E grading system. We did not end up using them, substituting a continuum system that rated student achievement from Well Below Year Level Achievement (what would become an E) to Outstanding Achievement Above Year Level (A equivalent) and reduced the written component down to two sections for Literacy and Numeracy and the 200 word summative comment. Still a lot of work but the teachers were wilting like in 2006. Interviews were held straight after the report card went home to explain how the middle part of the continuum “Achieving At Year Level” was a good place for their kids to be. Parents still gravitated towards the personalised comments where they looked for context for the achievement system.

For this year, the A to E system was mandated in all South Australian schools. It had to happen.

Teachers met to share work samples and to moderate their expectations for each year level. There was constant referral to the SACSA “Lite” documents to check on the outcomes being assessed. This common understanding was essential to ensure that teacher judgement was consistent across the school as standardised testing does not dominate the Australian education scene (yet, he thinks cynically) to provide that sort of data. We don’t have grading books like a few American edubloggers I have chatted with are compelled to use. We interpret the curriculum and individual schools have to put structures in place to ensure consistency. The writing shrank back to the summative comment only. Grades were inserted for strands within Learning Areas and an overall grade calculated. We also have spent time talking with the kids to ensure that their first experience with grades was not a bad one. Many Aussie kids have formed their perception of grades from American TV shows, their parents’ high school experiences where if you got a C, then you obviously weren’t trying very hard. This is in conflict with the Aussie system where C is year level achievement - to get a higher grade means working above that year level and being on a par with students in the year level above. The romantic concept of “straight A’s” just by working hard and being a “good student” is not going to happen. Multiple A’s on a report might only be achieved by highly gifted students.

Now I don’t see myself as a “professional grader” as Clay indicated but I think he realises that the Australian (and NZ as well) system within primary schools at least is a different beast to the one he is leaving. But interestingly, that despite the fact that Australia ranks well in front of the US in any number of international comparisons, we still keep wanting to adopt the worst ideas from their systems. I think this grading idea is one of them. It’s only a matter of time before this becomes the next logical step for our politicians seeking to “improve” our education system.

My wife and my youngest son, Joshua, headed off today for a five year old birthday party leaving me at home with our eldest son and a pile of report writing to do. We decided to head out for some lunch as a bit of a break, driving off to a Subway near our house. Now these things have sprouted throughout suburban Adelaide like mushrooms over the past few years to the stage where we have three of these outlets within five minutes of our house, two of them located in petrol stations. We went to one of those on Tapleys Hill Road, went in, ordered our food and sat in the small tabled section set up as a mini-restaurant. While we ate, I looked around and thought how the petrol station had evolved from the place where you just filled up the fuel tank and bought a Coke or choccy bar.

Some things haven’t changed like the obligatory racks of cigarettes behind the counter (although it’s getting pretty expensive down under to continue this sort of habit) but everything else is nothing like the petrol station of yesteryear. As well as the restaurant area, there’s a pretty comprehensive mini-supermarket, an ATM and gourmet coffees complete with muffins and other cakes for a longer pitstop. Add in Top 40 music playing through a quality sound system and ambient lighting and it’s obvious that this modern hybrid doesn’t just want you to pay for your petrol and go.

I read a lot about how school is stuck in the industrial age and that teachers from the 50’s would be able to work and operate in today’s classroom because things haven’t changed that much. But I’m not sure I buy that line of thought entirely. Sure, school buildings have been around for a while but the way my classroom has changed is a little bit like the modern petrol station. The technology does make a difference - the interactive whiteboard, the laptops, the wireless connection. There are other differences over my teaching career as well - the shift to inquiry learning as a focus, student voice coming to the fore, the popularity of open space classrooms, team teaching, the decline of open space classrooms, a greater focus on students creating and sharing their own learning, a constructivist curriculum framework that’s lasted more than three years, co-planning units of work, the introduction of standardised testing and the re-introduction of A-E grades. So the classroom, like the modern petrol station, is being asked to do much more than in the past.

I think that having the right facilities does help pave the way towards improved outcomes. The petrol stations decided that the way to improve services was to form partnerships with other franchises, sell a wider variety of products, allow punters easy access to their money and generally create an environment where people willingly part with their money because that environment is right. The modern classroom is reacting to the changes that society is inflicting and imposing and effective teachers are modifying what they offer in order to create the right learning environment. But they operate within financial and facility-based restraints. That means many classrooms might appear at a glance to be throwbacks to an older era but the teacher has to be like the service station proprietor where many services have to be offered to keep the learning moving along.

Anyway, not sure if this metaphor will fly. Feel free to shoot it down or compare and contrast to the classroom you know or have to operate in.

Will the work you do today
Stand the test of time

“Test of Time”, Spy Vs. Spy, 1988.

D’Arcy Norman went very close to pulling the plug and “nuking” his blog. Why?

He explains in an out-of-context quote:

…my blog is strictly just a bunch of words. Just a bunch of talk.

Now the focus of his post was tossing around the “edupunk” theme that seems to be fairly visible in my aggregator but this particular quote combined with his actual willingness to make his blog disappear from the face of the internet really made me think. All of us, typing in our thoughts, ideas and experiences - just a bunch of words?

Are words different to action?

Can words be a result of action?

Sure, some blogs can be a pile of pontification and empty trails heading nowhere. But D’Arcy’s blog is not the sort I would place into that category. His blog and many more that I read are full of action - documentation of action, plans for action, ideas to spark others to action - they are “about standing up and doing things”.

The things that are done are archived for those of us unable to see and experience the first hand action. We can take those words and use them to guide our own actions, to provide us with experiences and case studies and to help form professional and personal relationships with others in totally different spheres of learning. D’Arcy (and many others) help me with all of the above and more often than not put a smile on my face when I need it most. Where else would I have encountered the term “borked” if not for D’Arcy and his “outboard brain”.

Blogging can be a form of “time-capsuling” your work. I want my blog to be more than just words.

Image attribution: ‘i don’t know anything right now‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79477064@N00/88887418
by: Diane