Martin Pluss

Hi all,

I have sufferred withdrawal for a few days now that Twitter has  gone peared shape.  I just have to read before it rolls off the page. 

I am already a user of friendfeed  and might take up the offer to join a few in the friendfeed room.  I would not like to to have Twitter killed by Friendfeed but maybe there is some merit in the conspiracy theory. 

Anyway today I was starting to reap the real benefits of Twitter by connecting to live Twits in Brisbane with the Digital Education Revolution and some big Microsoft launch in USA.  I had Twirl popping up  and had to actually open up url links before they scrolled into the never never of “older”. 

Once you find the right people to follow the Twitter world really opens up the world.

I hope the Twitter experts are working really hard to get things right or are there secret discussion for a takeover?

On another note:  Really impressed with the Catholic (CEO) system lowering the average age of teachers to 40 years older.  That is 10 years lower than the national average according to Greg Whitby.  This is a really good idea for the profession getting in younger blood. I am not a fan of dead wood. 

cheers  Martin

 

cheers  PLu

 

Hi all,

Here are my unprocessed nor analysed notes – more thoughts later.

Digital Education Revolution Conference

26 May 2008- Harbour Side Marriott

By Martin Pluss

 

This was a great Conference today.

The ACER and Education.au supported by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations  (DEEWR) presented a series of events in different states to illuminate the possibilities and realities  of the implementation of the Digital Education Revolution. 

 

DEEWR  Daniel Owen

The Revolution

1.       Objectives

a.       Long term productivity

b.      Economic Growth

c.       Social Inclusion

2.        Components of  Revolution

a.       National Secondary Schools Computers for all

b.      Fibre Connections to Schools Initiative

c.       Online Curriculum Content

d.      Portal for Parents

e.      Best Practice Guide  for ICT in Schools

3.       Web Address

a.       http://www.digitaleducationrevolution.gov.au/

Mark Pesce

Update:  Mark has his talk on his blog now

http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=56

1.        Those wacky Kids

Get off my  lawn. – looked at Web 2.0 tools

What is perfectly normal?

In July 1993 after work he read the whole WWW in a week.

Mark is a constructivist: learn through though your interaction with the world.

We are not even on the same planet as these wacky kids.

Mizuto Ito  - Personal, Portable Pedestrian Mobile Phones in Japanese Life.

We are social animals – we live to communicate.  Hyper connectivity is coming to us from our blind spot. Cronulla Riots – by mobile phones.  Wikipedia Nature study showing to be accurate.  The kids have the dial to act between the two extremes. 

2.        Well Meaning Adults

They are unplugged from the co presence

Classroom is so disconnected – like solitary confinement – turn everything off.

Learning is about Communication, Connection and Collaboration.

Work has changed . Home life has changed. Schools have not changed.

Students losing respect for the classroom.

Computer is a window not a destination – opens the world to other people.

Classroom is the disruption not the technology.

Hard to manage because the media plays up the problems.

3.        Breaking Through

I am speaking to the converted and we are the seen as the  mutants.

Time of the tides will wipe past us but education will not fade away.

The streets finds its own use for things.

Accidental Revolutions – use of wikis for minute taking and modified.

4.       Questions from the Floor

a.       How to do it all with assessments – renegotiate with students

b.      Paranoia – opposing forces – media and kids mostly well behave.  Be Zen accepting of change, the illusion of control or actual control.

c.       Block things and pressure will come out elsewhere

d.      Letting go of control- right time right place.

Breakout Sessions

1.        State Examples from DET ( Rob Randal), AIS( Julie Thomson) and (Ian Meldrum).

2.       Julian Fraillon ACER Research

3.       Teaching with Technology Gary Putland, General Manager Education.au

a.       Understanding the Paradigms

 i.      Mobile

 ii.      Read Write

 iii.      Information Rich

iv.      Locus of Control

 v.      Transformative

vi.      Norms for online participation

 vii.      Sharing of risk taking

 viii.      Open regime of intellectual property

b.      Powerful about learning  - build , amplify and extend

  i.      Informal learning

  ii.      Virtual tours

   iii.      Rich media

  iv.      Accommodate learning styles

    v.      Assessment practices

    vi.      Flexible delivery – work and online.

c.       Literacy

 i.      Literacy

  ii.      Numeracy

  iii.      Technology and scientific literacy

d.      Between the flags first

e.      Success

 i.      Leadership

 ii.      Champions and mentors

  iii.      Plan

  iv.      Strategy

 v.      Infrastructure

  vi.      Recognition – awards

4.       Practical Examples from various schools

a.       Impact on students

 i.      Engagement

 ii.      Confidence

 iii.      Student feedback

  iv.      Test results

   v.      Improvement in SNAP

b.      Recipe James

  i.      Start with a need

  ii.      Reliable easy to use technology

   iii.      Professional Culture

1.       Passion

2.       Initiative

3.       Ideas

4.       Collaboration

5.       Executive support

6.       Direct support

7.       Time and money – grants

c.       Partnerships for 21century schools

i.      Connect

 ii.      Create

 iii.      Collaborate

  iv.      Context

  v.      Content

 vi.      Control

 vii.      Communications

 

5.         Support for Teachers

a.       Living in an online world

b.      ICT as a tool for teaching and learning.

c.       Make use of AGQPT grants – 2009 50% for ICT

d.      Celebrate excellent teaching – participate in awards

e.      What now

 i.      Regional Workshops –maths Science and English

 ii.      Professional Associations

iii.      ICT subject specific teaching standards

 iv.      Online learning

  v.      Professional Learning resources

f.        Questions from floor

 i.      Exlemplars of best practice

 ii.      Online videos and podcasts

 iii.      Technology coaches – use multiple models

 iv.      Remote area access

  v.      Laptops for teachers

 vi.      Collaboration between departmental sectors

  vii.      Pre-service Education in Universities

   viii.      Connection to IT providers

   ix.      Put ICT component in Naplan?

   x.      Access Roadshow on ACER website

6.        Plenary

a.       Research OECD data – ICT important students love learning, teachers love learning.

b.      Leadership common theme

c.       Australian states do well who have a focus on ICT

d.      Time- don’t have all the answers let alone  the right questions – google time?

e.      National Commitment

 i.      Connectivity

 ii.      Community

 iii.      Professional Development

f.        Perfect is the enemy of the good

g.       Collaborative Learning Communities – natural outcome – evolution

h.      21^st Century Classroom – state of mind, no walls, – relationship between who wants to learn and who wants to teach

i.         Education is dead long live learning. 

 

 

 

 

Hi all,

Short post and brilliant video by Mark on connecting, hyper connection ….Twitter and Wikispaces.

Source: Open Gardens Blog

 

cheers  Martin

Hi All,

Paul Left made some insightful comments in my blog on the topic of this thread:

Item 12: I think everybody’s different so not everyone needs to meet face to face. And with a global community that’s conscious of carbon footprints, many people are happier not.

Item 13: I’ve never heard anyone say ‘I would have felt more of a sense of community if there’d been a t-shirt/mug/bumper sticker’.

I guess this is where the context of my thoughts need to come into play. Yes I agree that not everyone has to meet but when you do meet sections of the the community are enhanced.

Just by way of example I will share with you how it works in another community. I am not trying to promote anything here but I use this successful community as a guide to what I do in the classroom.

Cool Running is a really useful place to learn about running ( in the same way EDNA is for Education) and to connect online with other runners who do many of the same things – train, race and improve times and want coping strategies for slowing down.

In my case what lifted the community and sustains its online presence is that it is also based in reality and we connect with each other. Once we connect our online world grows more as we can put a name to a face….

1. Once Cool running started to have caps and t – shirts people would come up to each other at runs and ask who we were in the online community. Runners in the gear would be cheered by total strangers ( because they are lurkers), lifting their spirit and sometimes performance. After the race people would connect up at a deeper level, travel interstate for other runs and meet other Cool Runners. So people did say a sense of community started develop further,
2. After a while other people at races would spot a cap or t-shirt and ask how do you all know each other and gee you all support each other well. They in turn become lurkers and after a while join the online in the community adding to the collective wisdom.

3. In the lead up to races though the online community people organise to meet after the run for social gathering. All things running are discussed and invariably people agree to meet up for training runs all communicated online and sometimes by Facebook invitations.

4. A few times a year online messages appear in each capital city for x’mas drinks and people meet up at designated hotels or cafes.

So a rich fabric of online and reality based connections support each other.

Cool Running is a community which has been around for 10 years , moved with times in terms of technology and is currently thriving. We have discussions about where it will be in a few years but at the moment it is still really well supported by the running community because it is seen to be of value to everyone’s shared interests.

How does this work for me and education?

I am not suggestion T-shirts or caps but I would like a way to be able to know a member of this community if I meet the in a different educational context.

For example, I am going to the EDNA ACER Digital Education Revolution Conference on Monday in Sydney and hope my online learning through EDNA will be enhanced by meeting a few of you. How do I know if you are there?

I had a Twitter EDNA connection last night from two difference educational online communities. Last night, for example, @mpesce whom I have come across in Twitter was also on The Inventors. We were on Twitter talking about it with him during the show. I note also he is one of the advertised presenters for the EDNA ACER Digital Education Revolution Conferences in Sydney on Monday. Here is an example where my involvement in this community can be enriched by meeting in person.

Anyway just some thoughts.

Cheers Martin

Hi all,

There is a bit of a discussion on the life of network forums over in EDNA.  I am not sure if the EDNA community picked this up but in an article I wrote about Communities of Practice (CofP) I used EDNA  as a good example of a CofP for Education and still believe it to be the case.   

In the article I also discussed how I was a singular failure in trying to develop a CofP for geography teachers in NSW – though  there is a very good Yahoo group for Geography teachers.  

So I find  it most interesting to see the discussion about the lifecycle of this particular forum.  Just some Cof P  observations from a lurker in this forum – though I am not a lurker in  what I believe is a very successful CofP   which gives some interesting insights into the success of a CofP. 

1.  Passion gets you only so far. A forum can only go so far on the drive of a passionate forum facilitator.

2.  Lurkers can have passion. Lurking  is a personal preference. A Cof P should take this into  account before making decisions for the community.

3.  When a forum is tied to a business or organisation there is pressure for it to succeed for perhaps the wrong reasons. 

4.  Schumacher is still right – Small is  (still) Beautiful. So…

5. …too many forums may confuse but they can work if we promote pull rather than push technology. So… 

6. … it is all about integration.  Have a forum seamlessly linked to a wiki, blogs of the members of the CofP, Twitter, Friend Feed….  It is all about one stop shopping. But…

7.  …sometimes it is time to move on.

8.  Critical Mass makes a big difference. So..

9  …it is important to add value.  More of the same breeds more of the same and new blood just lurks more or moves on. 

10.   CofP have to be based in reality even in an online world and…

11. …what you need is to refind the trigger which led to the initial success of the CofP.

12.  At some stage you need to meet people  in the CofP – that is why the EDNA tours were so great last year and the next best thing is …

13.  … the community needs a real identity – T- Shirts , coffee mugs, bumper stickers. For example…

cheers  Martin