thinking

A week or so back we had Rob Swartz from National Centre for Teaching Thinking in our school for a couple of days.

Rob has done a lot of work on how to get thinking 'infused' into the teaching in schools. Infused so it can be transferred between curriculum areas, contexts, and year levels. To often we teach a thinking strategy in isolation and it does not get embedded into our learners. I really like his books around infusing critical and creative thinking. They are teacher friendly and usable.

So we are developing our Whangaparaoa College thinking strategy to get thinking implemented across the school in a timely and active way. This will be the first of the key competencies of the new curriculum that we will have an implementation plan in place.

I have been concerned around some of the implementation as being to slow and considered. It may be impulsive to jump in but impulsive action is not always bad. It just needs to be managed.

As well we need digital versions of the curriculum or does everyone need to retype it!!!!

Social Effect of Learning

Went to a discussion led by Secondary Futures about the social effects of schooling a week or so back. Dr Tom Schuller from OECD was present and was able to link our education system into what was happenig in other places.
There was a small turnout which was a surprise.

Two observations

1. Everyone thinks they are at the cutting edge of education. Most are not; including me.
2. Most think the new curriculum will make a difference. But will it? It appears that most of new curriculum was in the old one. A better structure, better terminology and more coherence. But are we just 'shuffling the deck chairs'.

What is important is what goes on in classrooms. I still see words, phrases and ideas in the curriculum that belong to last century and I do not see big ideas reaching forward into this century.

Regarding the social effect of learning. A comment by Schuller was that there is "an enormous range of evidence that confirms the very strong correlation between educational achievement
and outcomes such as good health or more active citizenship". The importance of education then is not only to allow our learners to make choices about career and employment; but it also means they are more healthy and more active citizens.

This raises huge importance about our role as educators and what we must do. It is not simply about teaching for employment but about teaching for life and living.

Educated people are more healthy and live longer.

New Curriculum

Well tomorrow we have a new curriculum. It is no longer a DRAFT. All very new and up to date I'm sure and I understand a Prime Ministerial release.

But what will change?

• Will we see learners using IT like everyone does in the 'real' world?
• Will there be thinking practices ingrained in the curriculum?
• Will the assessment in NCEA reflect the new curriculum?
• Will be there be open-ended rich tasks in our classes?
• Will learners be blogging, using wikis, podcasts and so on?
• Will I see learners talking about their learning?

Or maybe I will still see

• NCEA assessments asking people to draw pie graph!
• Children learning about what is an ester!
• Learners still learning science, maths etc from different teachers with no relationship with each other
• Learners sitting still, being quiet, and accepting more content from teachers
• Learners having little access to digital resources and internet access

Yes, a new curriculum is important. And yes there are some positive changes in the the new curriculum. But there are still subject boundaries and content still dominates.

When I see our exams assess in depth thinking then I will believe that the curriculum has made a difference. Otherwise the battle around assessment will dominate and our children will continue to be educated for a world that no longer exists.

Health

Spent most of the day at a meeting at Auckland University as a member of a secondary school princpal's group advising on the Youth 2007 survey.

This is a survey of youth in New Zealand and factors around there work. It is a follow up on a survey done in 2000. The 2000 survey has some wonderful data about the risks around our youth and the 2007 survey is even better.

I look forward to the information coming out next year.

One of the concerns we talked about is how the data will be used. Will it be just another opportunity to bemoan negative statistics around various health, ethnic and education data or will a brave person use it to drive real change?

Teaching

Nothing demonstrates the concerns around education than the challenge of appointing staff at this time of the year.

We have a number of vacancies because we are a growing school. I have very few teachers leaving but those that are are leaving teaching for more money elsewhere. And applicants. Hardly any and very few from New Zealand.

We are allowing our profession to slowly die around us as we struggle with ever more difficult demands and allow ourselves to be removed from our core business of causing learning to occur.

An what do we get for four years training in this essential role. Well you start on $40k per year! No wonder our young, talented, and top scholars go into engineering, law and anything but teaching. An education is so important that we get a 4% increase. What other profession has operated on a 4% increase over the last year?

If we are ever going to change education and jump the chasm to a 21st Century learning environment then our sharpest and brightest will not do it for a 4% increase.

Change happens

After my comments about not taking risk to my middle managers they are all getting carried away. They are all setting up Google home pages, RSS readers, starting blogs and starting to get it written into the schemes.

All very exciting and change does happen. Small starts just need to keep moving.

Incremental radicalism - The small steps moving forward to big changes. it is great to see.

Ready to leap

Spent sometime with my middle managers last week about why we always tend to fall back into safety positions. My challenge is why to do we have some many text books around when again the vast majority of information is released in digital form.

The inevitable comments about lack of access etc came forward. But why do we still teach atlases, and dictionary, voltmeters and so on when none ever uses them anymore. The challenge is just because something is hard does not mean it should not happen.

Have recently come across a blog called Extreme Leadership by Steve Farber. He talks about the OS!M.
Steve says
"Fear is a natural part of growth, and since growth, change and revolution are all on the Extreme Leader's agenda, fear comes with the territory.
In the right context, therefore, your experience of fear (or exhilaration, for that matter) is your internal indicator that you're moving in the right direction. That you really are leading, in other words. That scary/exhilarating experience is what I call the Oh S**t! Moment or OS!M.
To put it bluntly: if you're using all the buzzwords and reading all the latest leadership books, and holding forth at every meeting on the latest management fads, but you're not experiencing that visceral churning in your gut, and you're not scaring yourself every day, and you're not feeling that OhS**t!Moment as regularly as clockwork, then you are not doing anything significant -- let alone changing the world -- and you are certainly not leading anyone else."

That OS!M needs to occur daily as we constantly push beyond our boundaries into new places. In education we desparately need leaders like this. Those who are going to push the boundaries even further and make the changes we so urgently need. It won't come from the established leadership places but it will come if we push hard enough.

Some fun stuff

Some kids doing some interesting and fun stuff. even some learning in there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wz6ctLIM24

New Zealand curriculum

Spent the day doing work around the new curriculum in New Zealand being released a week or so away. I feel the new curriculum is not offering much change except about removing some constraints that exist at present.

The new curriculum developments are going to be introduced through digital links and that is exciting. especially around the stories and the ideas which I think have the potential to be very powerful in this method.

however for secondary schools the two unanswered questions are

1. How are we going to assess in our high stake qualifications system? Is this still the same if so that will be the driver.
2. Are we going to let the text book writers choose the resource? I am nervous around whether the teaching fraternity are ready to move in development in this way

Exciting and commendable to the Ministry for choosing this way.

Research in New Zealand

Read an interesting article in the New Zealand Herald by John Langley. In this article John talks of the 'dogma and myths' that surround education and especially education initiatives in New Zealand (and probably worldwide). We seem constantly bombarded with the latest view of how we can do things better. Whether it is technology, governance structures, testing or something else which is going to 'solve' education.

John's five myths are great.

1. That experience is the best way to gain success.
2. That process is more important than product.
3. That learning must be fun and easy.
4. That you must "like" the person who teaches you.
5 That opinion equals fact.

Especially the last one. I feel it is because everyone has been at school so everyone is an expert. This is something we must work against. Valid research tells us how to act and teach Let's use it.

Green stuff

Spent Labour Weekend at Broadwood, a small isolated area in the north of New Zealand. No broadband, no cell phone coverage, no TV coverage.

The people I was with own a dry stock farm. There has not been much money in dry stock farming so even though they are asset rich (millions) they have no money. Old car, old house, run-down farm, limited food.

But a great life. Work all day outside at ease with the surrounds. Feel like a break then take it. The relationship with the environment is important and I noticed where we tend to fight the environment all the time. Progress in the city is about big alterations to the environment and battles around that. More speed (for everything) is important. We expect to spend our time doing more in less time.

I takes me a day or so to slow down enough to enjoy myself. I always want to check my email, watch TV, or rush off to do something. Is this the right way? Or am I being old and stupid thinking that we can step back and live life slow and more at tune with the environment?

And by the way what is education's role in this?

Maybe sustainability is important ito teach as the way of the future.

Election year

Just read Bruce Hammond's blog on Where we are Going. With election year ahead there will be all the promises and falsehoods attached with that. But where are we going?

We need to have big goals and ideas for ourselves and our organisations. Big audacious goals! But we need to take small steps as we work towards those goals.

I heard this called incremental radicalism. I like that. Does that mean I am an incremental radical?

Felt this was useful to me as I consider where my energies and enthusiasm is to go. It also means the journey which twists and turns is not so hard as along as progress is made.

Teaching and Learning

Why are we so concerned about teaching use of the new technologies. Who taught us? I suspect no one did! We are all self taught. No one taught us how to blog or use wikis or flickr. If you're my age (50) you probably are self taught how to use a computer.

We seem to be concerned about teaching when we should just worry about learning. Our students are learners. They use bebo and myspace and txt with out being taught. Has anyone taught them what 'lol' means when they text? Or how to put video in their web page.

David Warlick has a great blog on this. His next blog suggests what we should be teaching. The ethics of of information use. While we continue to teach kids things they will learn anyway we miss out on teaching how to use the information ethically. Then we have to put blocks and safety mechanisms and anti cyber bully programmes because we were remiss in leaving out the important stuff.

Feedback

After my presentation on Monday for the Ministry I got very good feedback. I got emails, txt messages and verbal feedback. But only one comment on my blog.

I feel that for many in positions of deciding the future of education they are still trapped in last century's technology. Where is the future? My belief in it being around Web 2.0 technologies means that educational leaders need to be using this to find out how it works if nothing else. I don't mean the future is learning how to use Web 2.0 technologies, but learning in an environment based on collaboration, instant information and communication, and control of knowledge.

But it is not happening. No blogging, no social networking, no flickr, no wikis, etc. We think by using email we are modern but email is very much last century's way of communicating. My children never email for instance.

Interestingly email is not the new way. An article about the problems of email suggest it is not suitable way of communicating. In my immediate team no one is allowed to email. It's ability to miscommunicate instead of communicate is huge. so we have banned it my team. communication is now so much better.

Leadership

Today I did some work with Excelerator. This is a leadership institute run by Auckland University. I had previously been part of one of their leadership programmes which had occurred over 18 months in 2005-7. My work with them today was as an example of a case study of a leadership situation.

The situation was of a challenge around management and governance and the role of the principal and board. I found it difficult to describe and talk about a situation which was a year old but still has so much emotion and rawness attached to it.

Lester Levy, who I admire hugely, talks about this situation as one of courage and standing up for what one believes is right. A Lester quote is "You can spot a leader because they are always face down in the gutter with a knife in their back."

While I am proud of how I acted in this leadership challenge and the development for me was huge, I am still nervous and unsure of why we do what we do. Another Lester quote is "Leadership is voluntary". I am still unsure why I volunteer!

I believe very much in wanting to make a difference to people but am still not able to understand why this is so important to me.

Thanks to Lester and Joline for the invite. Enjoyed the experience but it brought challenges out for me which require more thought.

Still working on what secondary schooling is about

Did my presentation on 21st Century Learning to the staff of Group Special Education a branch of our Ministry of Education. I was very pleased with how it went especially as it was the after lunch session.

I had thought how I was going to maintain engagement through the 40 minutes or so and was pleased with that. I had asked them to make their own rubric on how engaged they were and give me instant feedback on a 1 to 5 scale. It was good so must have kept their interest. Learnt this off Tony Ryan at the Ulearn conference. He also said do something to attract interest in the first 90 seconds. So did this as well.

I wanted to do some Internet work but all they had was a dial-up connection. So often we ask people to act in a 21st Century way on last century's technology. Luckily I had saved some web pages and videos but still that dislocation between the reality (slow Internet) and what we need to have for you tube, bebo etc

My basic premise is that what we teach in schools is years behind what is actually happening. Our kids use cell phones, Internet, ipods like they are normal. I did text my daughter in the presentation and got a reply within 90 secs even though she was sitting in a class.

However we still assess through NCEA how to draw a line graph! When was the last time someone did a line graph (or pie or bar) by hand in the 'real' (ie non-educational) world! Haven't our examiners heard of Excel. Or the preoccupation with content. When you look at the external examinations they are still (especially Level 3) mainly about content. It is great that key competencies are in the curriculum but why are these skills not in the exams.

I do believe content is important. It is what you hang the learning off. But when you look at our assessments it is very much like the content is everything. This in the age when information is available so readily through Google, wikipedia etc.

But we still ask

• What is an ester?
• What is the Doppler Effect?
• What is gravitation?
• Etc etc

Why can't people simply look up the answer on the Internet? After all that is what now happens in real life. We need to teach how to determine the veracity of the source, how reputable is the information, what are the credentials of the writers.

I feel this is the challenge. It is not simply enough to rewrite the curriculum. We must do more!

More visitors

A very busy week. Visitors in the school to look at our developments this morning.

Then off to present at a conference for GSE workers. My presentation is about 21st Century education, but is more about the dislocation between what is happening in the world and what is taught in secondary schools.

My concern is that there is such a canyon between the two. Our national qualifiactions the NCEA, still asks people to draw a line graph. when was the alst time anyone ever drew a line graph.

Then tomorrow it is off to work with some educators on a course at Auckland University on a leadership chalenge. There has been a few in this job! Still when I walk around the school it is great to be proud of what we have acheived.

The leadership challenge is where there was a difference in how the Board and myself saw an issue and how it was resolved.

Presentation

Have a presentation tomorrow to a 100 people or so from Group Special Education who deal with special needs in New Zealand Schools. I have the after lunch session.

Education in the 21st Century is the title!! Will they stay awake?

New Schools

Had some visitors looking at Whangaparaoa College. They wanted to see what they could do different. Being in a new school it is has been great to challenge the way that we do things. Whether it is length of lessons, bells, learning spaces or curriculum we have been able to challenge them all.

Some of the learning spaces are interesting and you can see them pictures of the spaces. It is great to be able to challenge around workshops, laboratories, libraries and not be constrained about 'the way things are always done.

Back again

Well I've been off my blog for some months. Been away for a while and so much to do when I returned .

Have also been feeling a bit disillusioned with where education is going. It seems as though we have not made any progress in what is happening in education for several decades. We still seem stuck in teaching last century's ideas utilising methods which we know fail. So I have felt as though I have just been rolling things over.

I was at the Ulearn conference last week where I was doing a presentation. The feedback about the presentation was good (even allowing for technical hassles) and made me feel that maybe we are trying some things at my school that work.

Also went and listened to Tony Ryan. I found him inspiring. It was great to listen to someone who is able to have things that not only inspire that can work as well. There seem a gulf in so many presentations between what is presented and what can be used in the classroom.

The question we should ask is "What can I use tomorrow?" If the answer is very little then was it worth being there? We seem more interested often in inspiring speakers rather than what this means for us and how we can use it.

This is what I felt about many of the presenters at Ulearn. Lots of big ideas floating around. Presented well and sometimes really inspiring. But where is the next step? The linkages between these big inspirational ideas and what works in a classroom is often lacking.

This creates frustrations.

This is where I have been at. Trying to move towards a modern curriculum within structures that want to hold us back is trying and tiring.

Web 2.0

I have my presentation on Web 2.0 today and people are planning to turn up. Maybe it is the refreshments

The hardest part has been to get the Internet management system not to keep blocking things. Hard to to work around Bebo if all you get is a message saying "You have been redirected"

So we have some work to do around that.

Have started a college wiki on Web 2.0. Feel free to add to.

Presentation

I am planning a presentation to interested staff on the whole Web 2.0 thing and how it can work with staff.

So thinking about what is the real essence of Web 2.0 and what this means. The really most useful to me is the blog and the use of RSS feeds. This has essentially changed my relation with information and has impacted hugely on how I utilise the media.

Instead of the media controlling what information I access I can now adapt and alter through RSS feeds. No more rubbish and so much more environmentally ok.

Flickr I think is wonderful and the social activity sites of myspace and bebo are interesting. Twitter leaves me dead, but wikis seem to have huge educational possibilities.

Digg I'm only starting to look at and second life while I'm there seems too huge at present.

Delicious is great both for me to store stuff but also to look at others.

ots to think about and lots to develop. What I do know is it is all about moving forward and developing ides.

Great day

Saw this quote on David Warlick
"Today’s exams are deadly. They test on a very narrow sampling of the skills that are crucial to the future. There are good exams out there. But they are expensive, by four or five times. We need fewer exams and much better ones."

That makes real sense. why do we worry so much about assessment? What is important is teaching and learning. Assessment can drive, develop, critique and support teaching and learning but on its on it is meaningless. Where is the value of assessment only?

Spent a lot of today thinking about what makes a difference in our school. Where is our point of difference? Did really good thinking with my senior team about where we are and where we want to be. Are we going to build on our strengths or weaknesses? Really good action around leadership in schools.

Went to a debate tonight about "Is the media strangling leadership in New Zealand?" form the excelerator institute. Good stuff but really where is the technology taking the media and what does this mean for our interpretation and understanding of information is the big issue. this is not touched.
Do RSS feeds and readers make traditional media obsolete? in my view yes as my knowledge now comes via that and a little from the radio while in Auckland traffic. I control what I want not some gatekeeper newspaper editor!

More reading

I find I am reading more and more as I get ideas sorted out around the impact on teaching and learning that technology is forming. I have started reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Like David Weinberger's work we have to rethink our idea of what is knowledge and its impact on schooling.

This seems to be at the crux of 21st century learning in schools.

Just also finished reading a couple of blogs. Bruce Hammond's blog on why we need some urgency. Why are things so slow?

Also David Warlick's blog on First Year teachers and the wonderful comment trail that follows. This does really make you think! Is this Web 2.0 stuff important or are we just playing around?

An interesting news report (from one of my teachers) states that New Zealand youth are the highest use of mobile phones in the world but our social networking is not as good.

lots happening and lots of thinking

Couple of things

Found an interesting article from Times online about how the Chinese are failing in their attempts to censor the internet. It seems as though the power of the technology is greater than even the largest totalitarian government's ability to manage it.

Have just enrolled in twitter. So if you want to tell me what you are doing just use my email in my profile.

Spent the day on finances, writing reports and trying to understand my property developments. Nothing on learning.

Have got our confirmed ERO (Education Review Office) report and it should be on their website next week. It is really good and I have to think twice if it is my school.

Back at School

Well arrived back at school with 500 emails in my inbox to be sorted and all those questions about staffing and money and property and furniture. ie nothing really important like learning.

It was exciting to be back at school around teachers who I admire and working with really great learners.
I shared with staff my reflections on my trip especially my thoughts around the conference. The thinking conference was great with some inspiring stuff and many great starters for me and the school. Frustrations around IT and the links that it has to thinking. Shared some of James Nottingham's presentation about modes of learning.

The most prevalent modes of learning used in schools (listening, reading) are those that have lowest retention rates, while those with the highest retention rates (explaining to others, practicing, discussing) are not done often. My challenge to the staff at Whangaparaoa college is that they do more of the high retention strategies and less of the low retention. A quiet classroom no discussing or explaining to others is a low retention learning environment.

I expect the noise to increase if nothing else.

Knowledge

Finished David Weinberger's new book Everything is Miscellaneous while doing the ten hour journey home from Kuala Lumpur. This is a great read about how we need to rethink knowledge now that technology allows us to access it differently. The sequential way of viewing knowledge previously no longer fits with the way knowledge can be viewed via the internet especially through latest Web 2.0 technologies.

If our view of knowledge needs to change then it fits in with my thoughts about how we need to change the teaching of knowledge away from the standard sequential learning processes relevant for the industrial age. These views have great importance to schools and have been talked about for decades but still have had little traction. The miscellaneous nature of knowledge which technology now demands may be the driver to push schooling forward.

Now reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. this again challenges our thoughts about the predictability and causality of knowledge and our intrpretation of events.

If we were to be doing our job as educators we would be teaching about 'Black Swans' and Miscellaneous knowledge as these ides seem to really where it is at.

Homeward

Have been out of internet contact or have had to pay for access which usually annoys me so I don't bother. Lots of stuff to read now though. Sittong in Kuala Lumpur airport where they have free wireless so can fill in some time before I need to catch my plane.

Enjoyed KL though very hot and dirty. Nice people and interesting sights. Good shopping which should keep my children happy when I get home. Don't know if the cat will be happy though.

Interesting time in London Heathrow leaving. Computers went down!!! All check in was done manually so meant that there was huge delays. Three hours in queue to check in and a rusth to get to the plane to find it could not get a leaving slot on the runway so we sat waiting for a time. So left 3 hours late. Massive delays. Recommend Malaysian Airlines though.

Lets us be aware of how technology is so crucial. The manual process was extraordinary in the work required. Many mistakes made which meant multiple checking.

Some thoughts on the trip overall.
* Conference was enlightening on the way that thinking can enlighten the curriculum.
* David Perkins outstanding as was De Bono on what he said.
* Disappointing how technology in schooling is still not occurring even in important areas regarding thinking. There was nothing on how IT and thinking work could together to create a modern education curriculum.
* Some really old fashioned stuff occurring and being trotted out as new.
* Everyone in Europe thinks, talks and cares about green issues especially global warming. They do talk about in the most unusual occassions. New Zealand has no discourse in comparison.
* Sustainability I think is becoming the key of the issues. Nothing happening much in education though.

Enjoyed things and lots to think about.

Next blog is from New Zealand. More stuff on thinking, IT and sustainibility to consider on the flight.

The Who

In London with normal cold wet weather. Of course it must be as Wimbledon is on.

Trying not to think about education much for a few days but finished Richard Florida's book called The Flight of the Creative Class. Says alot about twenty first century ideas regarding the sort of people needed. New Zealand comes out ok but still alot of change needed particularly about educated people.

Went to see that great 60s band The Who last night. Well the half that are still alive that is. Amazing performance. For folk who are past 60 they sure know how to perform. 2hours of hard out rock. I hope I am still performing that well at 62.

Also reading The Search by John Batelle. Mainly about google but links in with my thinking about education and schooling is falling further behind where technology is moving.

Tomorrow off to Big Ben and other interesting places. Love London but it kills the bank balance.

Conference

The conference coninued with some great stuff. Howard Gardner with a wonderful new study on good work and also listening to Edward de Bono was great. David Perkins still the highlight.

I ended poorly. A panel discussion on IT in education. The first person said "IT is just a tool". Educationalists must realise it is "the tool!" It has the capacity to transform education (and thinking) and to treat it as just a tool means we in education will be left behind. IT has transformed medicine and commerce and is now changing the way buildings are designed and built.

It is important that is is not just another tool. If world leaders in the field of education see IT as this then the task to change our perceptions is hugely challenging.

Spending a few days in Stockholm before off to London. Stockholm is a wonderful place. Everyone needs to visit here. Don't come in mid-summer as half the place is closed.

Conferences

I am in Sweden at the moment at a conference on Thinking. not just in education but across sectors. I feel that thinking is the solution to the problem of where our education goes. It necessarily to me involves the whole area of digital collaboration and the developments in literacy around that.
There has been considerable discussion at the conference about what education needs to do to develop further around where we need to go on thinking and some of this (although not enough in my opinion) is about linking digitally.
But the slowness of pickup by educators is huge and this concerns me. There is so little change in what people are actually doing that I still see the issue is that education trails the 'real' world in how it operates.

The recent conference on 21st Century Learning Environements in New Zealand had only 3 out of 100 people who used RSS feeds, had their own blog and web page. That is quite scary when these people are supposed to be the leaders of where we are going.

At this conference the same ideas are dominant. We need to change to embrace new learning but how when the dominant paradigm of testing, assessing, and transmitting knowledge is so entrenched. Learning of thinking in a digital environment does seem the way forward. We need adaptable, creative, resourceful citizens of the 21st Century. This is what Richard Florida talks about in his creative class.

Highlights so far in the conference have been Guy Claxton again and David Perkins. As well there was a very interesting presentation on the thinking of being chess master by Jonathon Rowson.

More interesting stuff today.

21st Century Learning Environments

My presentation went well. Except it was on 21st Century learning Environments and cookies weren't enabled there was a very old version of flash so some of my links did not work.

Says a lot that a conference on 21st Century learning environments could not run 21st Century software. How the heck do we build 21st Century schools?

Presentation

My presentation on 21st Century Learners is on today. Should be interesting. Some notes on this presentation are on my Wiki. Feel free to add some more as we are all keen to learn.

Also heard that my funding looks likely now for stage 2 which is very exciting.

21st Learning

Today I was at a Ministry of Education sponsored on 21st Century Learning Environments.

I really liked Jane Gilbert's presentation on knowledge and what that means. It sits very close to mine. The idea that knowledge is not universal seems so obvious but so alien to what happens in schools. It still is all about knowledge acquisition and so little about meaning.

Until we reconsider the meaning of knowledge and its transmission schools appear to be stuck in the constraints of the modernist thought.

There is a lot of talk about IT but little about what that means. The here and the now. But still the drivers are against this.

Visitors

This morning I will be running a workshop for a group of education visitors from Vietnam. They are visiting New Zealand to gather ideas about New Zealand education system. I am looking forward to finding out about their system.

some notes about the presentation are on my Wiki.

Future teacher

Last week I attended a discussion with other educators on what secondary education would look like in 2027. This discussion was part of the Secondary Futures project.

When asked to describe what the inspired teacher would look like in 2007, I drew a computer. At present the dominant practice in schools is still around knowledge development and information retrieval. I have seen nothing over the last twenty years that tends to suggest a change to this dominant practice.

Sometime in the next twenty years with the advances in technology and the lowering costs it may become economic to replace the teacher with a computer if the expected outcomes are as low level as they are at present.

Are we like the Blacksmiths were at the end of the 1900s.

"These new car things won't ever take off. You can't pat a car."

I do wonder if the only people listening to the importance of teachers are us educators as the world rapidly develops forward and leaves us behind. The reasons that people gave for teachers are for the social needs, the human contact, the collaboration, etc

And these people did not use Bebo, myspace, Web 2.0 and so on.

Leadership in Education

I have been asked to do a workshop on leadership in education.

This has meant that I have spent sometime thinking around what are the most important issues for educational leadership at the beginning of the 21st Century.

I believe there are two major strands

1. Connectivity - I believe that connectivity between people is becoming of greater importance. The rapid growth of myspace and bebo is testament to how important this and Web 2.0 technologies are obviously critical here as well. However in schools we also need not only to think about digital connections but visual, spatial and personal connections as well.
2. Sustainability - Environmental sustainability is obviously important based around concerns about global warming and resource depletion. So sustainability includes education about sustainability as well as making our schools environmentally sustainable. But there is a bigger issue here as well, which is what is sustainable educationally. With the amount of information exploding exponentially and access to that information becoming cheaper what is sustainable in our schools. Or does the notion of 'schooling' become redundant as we move through the 21st Century?

When I get things worked out I will post my workshop for others.

I have just read Will Richardson's blog on 'technology as the devil'. One of the challenges of moving into using the new technologies is to make staff start using these the ideas. There needs to be a method where staff are supported in their learning.

At Whangaparaoa College we have operated on the idea of building a small number of staff being trained at a time. As this number grows we find that we build closer to a critical mass. Staff start wanting to be part of the 'trained group' and then start trying things.

It takes a while to grow. Sometimes years which just means with technology that we just ha ve to keep teaching new stuff all the time to out teachers.

One or two heros on your staff just going over the top can make huge change.

Collaborative Learning

I have been working with First Class software at out school to learn how to use it as a collaborative tool in our school. We have introduced this as a way of developing digital resources and having collaboration between learners.

Like any new software the major issues are often at the start around permisions and all those other little glitches to make something work.

Is it something inherent in digital technology that it won't work straight away or is it because I am a digital immigrant being now 50?

Hillary Programme

My last blog was on the leadership programme I have just completed.

I need to thank the few of us who were still there at the end. Nigel, Peter, Vivian, Carmen, Andrew and Michael. It will be great to keep in touch.

Also a big thanks to Peter and Lisa who ran the programme with help from Lester, Brigid, Joeline, and Loretta. Thanks to Phillipa for making everything work.

Leadership

I have just finished an 18 month leadership course for senior leaders. It is called the Hillary programme run by Excelerator which is part of Auckland University. The course has been hugely demanding not in time but in commitment. The commitment is about a need to work from ones self. To be a better leader requires a person to be a better person.

There have be many challenges over the 18 months. The challenge of needing to look at myself and how that drives my leadership. The challenge of working with others closely over a long period of time. The last challenge is what this means moving forward and how I am going to use this in the future.

There are two areas which interest me in education. The first and I think easier one is the whole area of where education in the 21st century is heading and how connectivity and Web 2.0 have the capacity to totally alter the way we learn and teach. Schools need to adapt to survive and teachers need to change to continue to exist.

Education as a compulsory part of our societies is only relatively recent and high school education in New Zealand has only been compulsory for 70 years. If we don't change our profession risks becoming as redundant as blacksmiths are compared to 200 years ago.

The second issue follows from this and it is the area of that new word of the decade 'sustainability'. Sustainability in education not only from an environmental view but how do we make learning sustainable as as Friedman states our world flattens around us?

So my leadership over the next time window (undefined in length) is to work in the areas of 21st Century education around firstly connectivity and secondly sustainability.

Leadership

Today is the last day of an 18 month leadership programme. Have I changed or learnt anything. Today I find out.

Last week I worked with a group of 18-24 year olds in Auckland who were having a week long leadership course. It is inspiring to work with youth who actually do believe they can make changes to the world. There were several on the course who I believe will do this.

The old visions of leadership as being first over the top and everyone follows saw not evident at all. These were all reflective, thinking young adults who really valued the opportunity to do something for the world. It does leave one slightly humbled to be in their presence.

Moving on

I have not written for a while because of the distractions of the Easter break and preparing for an upcoming ERO visit. Two things have occurred which have brought me back to the focus of learning in this time.

The first is Will Richardson's book titled Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms which I found wonderful. This gives a great insight into how these technologies can be used in the school.

The second is my oldest daughter, Annie, aged 14. She was using messenger to communicate with two friends at one time, while also have a text conversation on her phone. The surprising thing was that the conversations were all connected and it was as though she was just a conduit for the thoughts. If she is able to do this socially then what could she achieve educationally?

She is now hankering for a myspace account, which I am persuading her she needs to be older to have.

These two issues have sent me forward again on the journey to establish more technological solutions at my school.

Learning and Leadership

Today I am off to a leadership course where I will be presenting my ideas on what I am planning to do about my learning challenge.

The challenge is to do this within the framework of the huge demands of managing a school, building a new school and preparing for an external audit of the school. The challenge of learning in a new way for me is causing concern but not as much as how scary it is to bring this into a school for others.

I read a blog posting from Will Richardson today about his conversations with some graduate students. The full conversation is at on his website but I have edited a little.

"I got the sense that most didn’t want to accept that challenge or felt it was just too daunting. And at another point, after going through a list of reasons why using these ideas were going to be difficult, I said “yes, but you know there is nothing stopping you from changing the way you learn.” Not sure how well that went over, either

I don’t mean to come across as disparaging to any of these students. You could tell they were by and large smart and sincerely interested in the discussion. But I guess I was hoping for more, though I’m also not entirely surprised I didn’t get it.

As much as I want it to be otherwise, the reality here is that we’re just not getting it done on so many levels."

That is somewhat how I feel. Somewhat daunted and the reality on so many levels so far from where it should be.

School Development

At the moment I am developing an action plan for the further development of the school into a learning school. This blog will be important as a collaborative part of that development.

The action plan for this is developing on my web page. The link to this is at http://scottieoconnells.wikispaces.com/Action+plan

Information

I came across this writing by Ian Jukes which has some fascinating information regarding the future of information and where this is heading. http://ianjukes.com/infosavvy/education/handouts/fgtg.pdf
The future of education is hugely linked to the future of information. Information is as Ian Jukes says in the process of exploding. But what does this mean for learning.

Paper

I recently came across information that on a fraction of the words (5%) that were written last year was published on paper. The rest is all digital.

But our schools are all paper.

Most teachers don't know about blogs or pod casts or wikis. They still use textbooks.

Most schools block access to myspace or youtube or digg.

Why?

With over 100 milion users my space is obviously sgnificant to learners but what those this mean to us as educators?

This is the first listing of mine on a blog. My role is principal of Whangaparaoa College a large secondary school in Auckland, New Zealand.

The school is new only been open two years and has had a number of difficulties getting underway due to hassles with project managers architects and planners and not least the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. But we do have many wonderful buldings which I will post pictures of in a few days time.

The school has been built with learning at the fore front and this is the continued challenge as we move on. The challenge of keeping learning the key while surrounded by the so many other demands. Even more the challenge is about what does learning mean in our Web 2.0 world and as a school leader what does this mean? While the excitement of working in a web enabled way the management of that around risks of internet safety are huge and I would be interested in how that works.

If Web 2.0 is the future what does that mean about our schools and the way learning occurs?