To meet the demands of a new age

This video shows a 21st century curriculum philosophy. The message is one for all teachers; and certainly those integrating ICT and Web 2 tools in their classrooms will relate to it.

To Meet the Demands of a New Age from Steven H on Vimeo.

Wired for the future

Mission Heights, a school here in New Zealand, featured on our TV programme, Close Up, here last Thursday night. This is well worth watching. This is a new school who have set up a learning environment for this century. I wonder how things will change in the next twenty years?

Making elearning books

I have been making an elearning book using ClassTools. You can then embed these into your blog or wiki. A big positive is that you do not need user names, passwords etc. Unfortunately the book needs to be under 10 pages. However what a great tool to use in the classroom. As well as the obvious curriculum area of literacy it could be integrated into any curriculum area. There are some really great templates such as fishbones and timelines for example - have a look. You can also create educational games and activities. These are all done using Flash. It is free!!

Click here for full screen version

Discover a great degree at accounting online

Does the use of ICT in the classroom enhance the thinking and learning?

I have just been reading an article by Terry Freedman. He has been listening to a journalist, John Clark, at a recent conference he was at. John was obviously an interesting keynote speaker.

Terry points to four main points from the speech:

1. ICT has a number of important potential benefits for
education.
2. The degree of hype and misplaced funding has been such that the
potential real benefits are being obscured by illusory ones.
3. After massive funding in the UK over the last decade, the research
evidence about ICT's effectiveness in raising attainment is still either
superficial or ambiguous.
4. Much of the software we laud is actually anti-educational: it
institutionalises short attention span, and provides a raucous, cacophonous
environment which is anything but conducive to learning.

These points give us, as educators some points to ponder. As he says we need good research to provide the evidence that we are enhancing the thinking and learning - not just anecdotal evidence. Is anyone out there doing some research about this? I would love to hear about it.

Cheers
Di

The future of newspapers...

Fascinating article in The Independent. This is something that we regularly discuss at home as a family member was an old fashioned sport's reporter! A neighbour recently cancelled his paper as he is now reading it online each morning.

I love these maps in the article to look at different arguments on the topic.

It is a great idea to use in the classroom as a debate topic.

Pre service courses for teachers

We are currently relooking at our courses for pre-service teachers.

Any teachers in the classroom who have any ideas of what they consider important for these students to cover, in relation to the use of ICT in the classroom, while they are undertaking their preservice training please let us know.

Thanks so much for your help.

Vlogging

What is vlogging? As you can imagine it has something to do with blogging as well as videos! The vlog (video-blog) is a blog which mainly uses videos in each post.

This video is by Leigh Blackall and gives a good explanation of vlogging.

New Learning

Kalantzis and Cope (2008) have an article on the Curriculum Leadership web site. This is well worth a read. They are discussing the changes that are happening in education. They ask the questions "what will learning be like and what will teachers' jobs be like?" This is something that fascinates me as I am sure that there are going to be a lot of changes in the near future but just what the classroom of tomorrow will look like I am not too sure.

They discuss eight dimensions of learning today that may help to formulate a theory and practice of New Learning. These include; locations of learning, tools of learning, outcomes of learning, balance of agency, significance of difference, relation of the new to the old and the professional role of the teacher.

Another article I have been reading on a similar vein is by Rachel Bolstad. Rachel and Jane Gilbert wrote a book Disciplining and drafting, or 21st Century Learning? Rethinking the New Zealand Senior Secondary Curriculum for the Future . They have used a series of graphics to illustrate how students 'navigate' through their secondary school life. These graphics helped me to clarify these concepts.

A learning theory for 21st century learners

Marie Sontag has written an interesting article in the latest Innovate journal.

She argues that due to students being so involved with connective technologies that this impacts on cognitive processes and that educational theory must change to accommodate these changes.

She acknowledges the need to incorporate elements from other theories that are relevant and to restructure them to meet the needs of the students.

In the article she describes a social- and cognitive- connectedness schemata (SCCS) theory and presents a study to show increases in transfer by using a model designed on this theory. In the SCCS model she discusses student behaviours as 'link, lurk and lunge' (see graphic).

This article has many ideas for us to ponder and is worth reading.

PicLits

I have been playing around with PicLits. What a great idea to use this site to inspire writing in the classroom.

I can certainly see possibilies for children to work together to create these. What a shame that you appear to be unable to use your own graphics but at the moment using these ones enables children to understand the concept and then they could go on to make their own.

"PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with
carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the
right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence,
story, and meaning of the picture."