PLE Reflection (after a presentation for our Year 11 conference)

My brief, to present at a Year 11 conference about online tools, has accentuated, in my mind, how far away we are from providing the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) at school students need in a networked society.

Your input, via comments at a previous blog post, twitter and yammer proved invaluable but also challenging, when one considers the realities for kids in our schools. Year 11 will have virtually no opportunity, in their day at school, to use a computer or the many tools available online. During this presentation, I acknowledged that the student delegates will just have to use all this stuff at home.

One kid pointed out, that even if they had DERNSW laptops, software could not be installed and many of the sites, especially social media and collaboration tools, would be blocked anyway.

I was surprised at how little they knew of the tools discussed. The students were unfamiliar with all the tools, except iGoogle.

On a positive note, the delegates were enthusiastic about what they could do at home. They were particularly keen on Wordle, GAPMINDER, Slideshare, Evernote, Prezi and Wolfram Alpha. 

 

The Future?

The big question in my mind: will opportunities for innovative pedagogies and practice emerge from the Australian Curriculum?

                                                                                                                      Or not

‘How Has The Internet Changed The Way You Think?’

Here are the best answers you are likely to read, compiled by the Edge Foundation at their World Question Centre, to this important question.  

The following passage, from Tim O’Reilly‘s musings on the question, Pattern Recognition, made me reflect about the challenges of staying ‘educated’ and being and ‘educator’ in our ever-shifting culture:  

“It used to be the case that there was a canon, a body of knowledge shared by all educated men and women. Now, we need the skills of a scout, the ability to learn, to follow a trail, to make sense out of faint clues, and to recognize the way forward through confused thickets. We need a sense of direction that carries us onward through the wood despite our twists and turns. We need “soft eyes” that take in everything we see, not just what we are looking for.  

The information river rushes by. Usenet, email, the world wide web, RSS, twitter: each generation carrying us faster than the one before. But patterns remain.  

You can map a river as well as you can map a mountain or a wood. You just need to remember that the sandbars may have moved the next time you come by.”   

This is at the heart of the challenge for schools. We do need to ‘map’ and assist students chart their courses but, it is fundamental to our role, that we keep remembering, the map is not necessarily the territory. *  

I continue to enjoy daily missives from Seth Godin, ostensibly an advertising and business ‘guru’, increasingly the source of some practical, coherent thinking about the impact of the internet on society. His latest blog post, about libraries, illustrates the point made by O’Reilly:  

Once again, the net turns things upside down. The information is free now. No need to pool tax money to buy reference books. What we need to spend the money on are leaders, sherpas and teachers who will push everyone from kids to seniors to get very aggressive in finding and using information and in connecting with and leading others.  

Godin’s notion of a ‘sherpa’ guiding others to the top of a well-known territory works for me. Funnily enough, although it more poignant for me than I care to detail, this made me think of a Michael Leunig cartoon, from many years ago, that really impacted on me significantly at a critical juncture in my life.  

From, 'Everyday Devils and Angels' 1992

Learning is similar. Triumphs have a way of just leading the thoughtful learner to more questing, often with a nagging sense that there’s just nowhere near enough time to explore all that fascinates (or is needed).  

What mountains to climb then? Is that the question a skilful teacher or librarian will be able to help their students understand, as they ascend?  

Enough of the sherpa thing.   

The map has changed. The internet has changed the way we think, as we envision and navigate the unfolding text of our culture. The river will always have new sandbars; it flows rapidly. We need to be mindful that our old maps do not flush students into an ocean that is no longer there.  

Mountains to die on?

What was it like at your school?

Were you a smart kid? Were the classes streamed/graded or mixed ability or some combination of both? How did your teachers teach, engage and stimulate interest in the topic or activities? What was the best thing about the way you were taught at school? What was the worst? Was student welfare evident? 

If you are an educator, what is it like at the school you work at now? Different? Pretty similiar?

Schools play a large part in the construction of student idenit(ies). The way a school organises the students and the programs that are emphasised say a lot about what is valued. Teachers have often preferred streamed/graded classes as there is a perception that it makes lesson preparation easier, especially for traditional teacher-centred lessons. The impact on student motivation and self-esteem of being graded into a ‘bottom’ class is often profound.

Personally, I have few ‘mountains to die on’ but the notion that 11-12 year olds enter a high school and a factory sorting system ‘ranks’ them borders on abhorrent. I was pleased to read that the NSW Board of Studies recommends phasing out the streaming of students according to their ability, citing research that says it has little effect on achievement – even in Maths.

Constructivist notions of education and the impact of technology increasingly allow for individualised intruction and educators need to develop more sophisticated approaches to managing learning in classes. Creating the conditions and opportunity in the class for students to take responsibility for their learning is key. What do we value? Self-motivated students engaging in rich, relevant curriculum with appropriate use of technologies with a skilful facilitator of these conditions would seem about right. Another mountain?

DET, prodded by the NSW Teachers Federation has an important role in creating the conditions that transform our places of education into relevant, 21st century learning spaces with appropriate levels of funding, organisation and leadership. I particularly like the ’21st Century Conditions for 21st Century Learning’ conference theme posted at the NSWTF site but wonder what is meant by ‘preferential upskilling’?

However, as wheels slowly roll for the various organisations we work for and unions that have a keen interest in social inclusivity, the reality is that change must start with the individual…what are we doing to help kids and our community to prosper? Business as usual is not going to be enough it seems; it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Or maybe that should be something more technologically advanced than our metaphoric candle.

Suggestions?