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Why I dislike the words “teach”, “teaches”, “teacher” etc

Jan 29th, 2009 by

Two questions I have often been asked during my life -

“What do you do for a living?” and “What do you teach?”

“What do I do for a living?”

This is a problem, most of society would say I am a teacher, but teaching is such a one-sided sword! My true profession is “helping kids to learn”, “being a facilitator of the learning process” or “providing learning activities for students”. After all the word “teaching” implies one-way communication – ie I stand there and I, well, I TEACH! But I DON”T stand there and teach! The word “teacher” does not relate to the way in which I (hopefully) set my students on a lifelong mission of learning.

And I have often commented in class “I am not a teacher!” Which terribly confuses my students. “What are you then, miss?” “I can only help you to learn” I answer. And of course the emphasis of my class is then moved away from me teaching, to them learning. It is not MY time you are wasting if you misbehave or are not participating.

There is really no way to TEACH anyone anything if they are passive learners, if they are not willing to participate in the learning process. To teach you need a learner, and you need an ACTIVE learner if your lesson is to be successful. And of course this is why I am always so excited by the opportunities to use “teachnologies” in learning. The emphasis moves away from the teacher as a “presenter” of the lesson, and is firmly placed onto the student as a “recipient” and “participant” of the lesson, and the consequential achievement of skills, forming of opinions, ability to solve problems etc But the other great thing about using technology in learning is that students just love to participate in lessons where technology plays a leading role. How much more exciting is it to learn about the flow of blood from heart to lungs to heart to body to heart etc via an interactive animation, as opposed to a picture in a text book. Even more exciting for students is to have the opportunity of CREATING the animation of blood flow themselves, and then to share it with their fellow class members via moodle!

And this is where our VELS curriculum really got it right – ICT for visualising thinking, ICT for communicating, ICT for creating – that little flash animation created and shared within a Science class embodies all three of the dimensions of the “ICT as an interdisciplinary domain” within VELS.

“What do you teach?”

My answer to this question is usually along the lines of “kids aged from 13 to 18″ or “Years 7 – 12″ But of course the person asking the question really wants to know what SUBJECT I teach. As a “more mature” female I often get asked “Are you a nerd?” when I finally let on that I teach ICT. YES – I AM a NERD! AND proud of it!!

Cheers
rozzie

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Phones, iPods, other communication tools & social change

Jan 29th, 2009 by

“Gen Y need to feel connected all the time. It is this process of feeling connected to one’s peers that keeps teenagers hooked on MSN or Facebook for hours after school, and yet we wonder why they don’t want to sit quietly in rows without any social interaction” Andrew Douch

A conversation in a staff meeting and on the elearning list today has set me off about the restrictions placed on mobile technology in schools.

Why can’t they use their phones during recess or lunch? What happens if the phone is an iPhone and capable of connecting to the internet? Why can’t two kids share a set of ear buds? What if a teacher wants students to download podcasts to their ipods? What if a student wants to use his phone to google a topic?

Every aspect of our students’ lives is built around communication and collaboration, why are we limiting their uses of the tools they use the most for these ends?

What about this blog post from Terry Sale?

Friday, April 11, 2008 (see http://21csale.blogspot.com/2008/04/phoning-it-in.html )

Phoning It In

Just came from my first period English 10 class, and in the spirit of the instantaneous pouring forth of thoughts favored by the modern world, I thought I’d share something. On many Fridays, for our warm up, I give the class what I call a poetry song. Today the song was Vertical Horizon’s “Everything You Want,” which I like to use because its ambiguity usually sparks some discussion. Today the class stared at the lyrics mystified for a long time. Nothing. I finally asked, what sort of song is this – is it about politics? Relationships? Sports? A couple of brave souls ventured guesses: yes, it’s about a relationship. Maybe it’s about God. A brief discussion, then more silence. I asked, How could we figure this out? Their answer: Google. Meanwhile, I had a Macbeth assignment for them to work on, so I said, Maybe we can google this later in the class.

And then, from the back of the room came the voice of Steve saying, “I already have.”

Steve had fired up his iPhone or equivalent and searched for the song. He said he only found a couple of comments, and they just seemed to be someone’s opinion, not a definitive answer (such as, say, the band itself revealing what they really meant).

On the way back to the English office, several thoughts populated my mind:
Good thing I didn’t see Steve fiddling with his phone and take it away before he could contribute to class.
I read in one of Howard Gardner’s books about multiple intelligences that he thought that computers and other electronic devices we have access to should be included in our measure of intelligence.
Years ago, a former AHS English teacher found out one of her students had computer software that would actually check his spelling and grammar, and she threw a fit because it was unfair that he had such an advantage over the other students; when he wrote in class his writing was poor to mediocre, but when he wrote at home it was good.
Good for Steve for recognizing right away that the source he found wasn’t necessarily authoritative.
By the time we figure out how to afford laptops in every classroom, all our students may very well have acquired phones with Internet access.
Outside the classroom, students are used to finding answers to what they want to know right now (the operative phrase being “what they want to know”). It must really frustrate them when, in the classroom, we constantly delay satisfaction.
The only Google-proof questions seem to be those that require some sort of personal response.
Karl would be proud: Steve is a staunch Apple guy.

I leave the conclusions to you.

My fastest blog post ever.

posted by T Sale @ 8:46 AM

And some want to ban them from schools???

Some of the staff thought using phones and iPods was not acceptable and they should be totally banned (ie permanently out of sight).
Another comment “two girls walking down the street, one on the phone, is rude behaviour”
My comment : social values are constantly changing over time (and vary from country to country and in different religions etc) My example was – in the 30′s it was rude for a man to walk down the street without a hat on.

And social change is inevitable, and probably good. Let’s understand and embrace the social values of our students, not discount them as rude and ill-mannered.


Thoughts for you to consider…

Cheers

rozzie

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The Way Back Machine

Jan 29th, 2009 by

I have been using the internet since early 1994. In those days I had a computer with a “massive” 125 MB hard drive and 2 MB RAM!! It had an A: floppy drive and a B: (very) floppy drive, and even a 2X CD ROM !! And a 14.4 kbps modem! It was just impossible to download a 1 MB file before using up the 2 hours of internet time you would get per day! But it was the ULTIMATE machine of the time and ran on DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1!

The World Wide Web as we know it today didn’t really exist – we did not have a browser,  mainly we chatted in plain black text and used ascii text for pictures of things such as roses and hearts via IRC (Internet Relay Chat) – smilies were done with text and didn’t wobble or wink at you! We shared information via newsgroups, and scoured Bulletin Boards for free software. Eventually I came across a program called Netscape which provided access to the world wide web. We thought Yahoo was the be all and end all.

I still keep in touch with people from all over the world who I ‘met’ in those early days of 1994 in an IRC chatroom called #wombat. Over the years we have had numerous meetings in USA, Australia, Japan & England, and there have been a number of successful marriages and children born between #wombat members. Others have sadly passed away. I also married a fellow #wombat, in 1998, after a three year courtship which spanned Japan, USA and Australia!

Our students probably cannot imagine life without a computer or the internet. “I need to learn to live in the world I will grow up in, not the world you grew up in”. Yet I still have friends that say “I have survived all these years without the internet – I don’t need it now”

Information Technology has a history. The Internet has a history. Although I believe it is strange it is not considered important enough for our students to learn the history of something that plays such a huge role in their everyday lives – Ancient Egypt is considered more important! But then “we” grew up with Ancient Egypt, not the Internet, MSN Chat, facebook, myspace, google and youtube and “we” write the curriculum!

But it is important that snapshots of the Internet over time are preserved and archived for this, and future generations.

The WayBack Machine does this http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Here is the first page from google (Nov 1998) http://web.archive.org/web/19981111184551/http://google.com/ Click the Google Search Engine Prototype link to go to the search page, or the Might-work-some-of-the-time-prototype that is much more up to date. link

The Wayback Machine shows when sites were first uploaded and when they were updated and goes back to 1996. Try your favourite sites on it if you have a few minutes to waste during a meeting!

And if you want to see what using Netscape looked like in 1995 click here http://www.dejavu.org/1995win.htm Real Exciting eh!!

Cheers
rozzie

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Windows vs MacOS vs Linux???

Dec 3rd, 2008 by

Okay so everyone has their favourite!

My 19 year old son will not use anything but Windows because he is a game player and requires Direct X for many of the online games he plays (and he is working at IBM as part of his uni degree at the moment and they use Win) But he has happily and completely taken over my MacBook (which dual boots to Windows via Boot Camp). Although he only uses it in Windows. I was rather surprised when he recently mentioned that many of the online games coming out of Korea, India, China etc use OpenGL and do not require Direct X – shift happens!

A few people at school will only use the MacOS, and will only go into Win to write their reports (as we use the DEECD report writing software QuickVic which only works on Win) I must admit I loved using my MacBook (until it was confiscated by said son!) but so many of the apps we use at school are Win based I found myself spending the day in Windows (via Parallels) and switching back to Mac for my evening browsing. I also have WinXP on my desktop at home because I need to run accounting software for our businesses which is only provided for Win.

So I am now using a little 11″ Compaq Presario B1900, which is much lighter and more portable than the MacBook, and I find that it fits into my handbag (albeit a rather large one) and does not get too heavy as I cart it round all day. It runs Vista quite well with 2GB of RAM – although the HD is somewhat lacking at just 75GB (15GB spare).

BUT, I am a believer in the ideology of Open Source Software, and much of the software I have installed on all my computers is open source. So I have installed Ubuntu via WUBI (WindowsUBuntuInstaller) and am having so much FUN! Although I did have to update my wireless drivers, once I did this it was great. My next step is to get WINE happening so that hopefully I can be freed of the need to ever boot into Windows again. Only then can I finally claim to be a true convert to OS, and all that it ideologically stands for – not to mention the whole philosophy of Libre knowledge and learning as well. And I did mention Libre Knowledge in my last post, so forgive the reiteration, it’s just that it is so enlightening!

What a wonderful concept!!

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#VITTA08 a resounding success!!

Nov 29th, 2008 by

The VITTA conference was no doubt a resounding success. Everyone has commented on the excellence of the keynotes, presentations and workshops.

Personally I arrived home absolutely exhausted! In the week prior to the conference I had created 6 presentations & workshops (including two double sessions) and also the introduction to the Karl Fisch interview video shown during the keynote on the first day. I had not gone to bed on the Saturday night at all, working through the night, and then was up until 3am on the Sunday night finishing off the last of my presentations.

But it was fantastic. I loved the keynotes and presentations I attended and chaired, meeting people who I have communicated with via email and being able to put faces to the names, I loved the buzz of the exhibitors marquee, the competition draws and a glass of wine at the end of each day, running into people I have not seen for ages, the dinner, and the overall atmosphere.

But it was the outstanding quality of the keynotes, the presentations and workshops that really made this conference the absolute best of its type in Australia, and a number of people commented that it was far superior to others they have attended.

And the amazing conclusion that I have come to since the conference, is that the annual VITTA conference is no longer just a conference for ICT teachers. Yes there are specialist VCE IT presentations (and I presented two of them). But there were so many presentations and workshops that highlighted the use of various technologies in our classrooms and were therefore relevant to ALL teachers!

I wonder how many teachers discount the VITTA conference as “just for ICT teachers” and therefore have missed an amazing opportunity to sample a taste of what this conference was all about “Shift Happens: Technology Alone Will Not Save Us”

ICT has become an interdisciplinary domain, and as such is often not taught in schools as a compulsory subject (in my school it is only available as an elective). But how many teachers are embracing existing and emerging technologies within their classrooms? How many teachers still see “using ICT” as simply getting the kids to use Word, PowerPoint or an Internet search in class (and many students have exceptionally limited skills in all three of these areas)

We need to go beyond the basics, our kids spend more time using technology than watching TV. They use social networking, play games online, chat online, share photos, share their experiences, share their videos and much more. But far too many administrations are too intent on blocking all of these experiences from the school environment.

I have two big major problems with current practices in many schools
- the Internet should be free to all students
- the Internet should be completely open (youtube, chat etc should be allowed)

Schools need to embrace the idea of Libre Knowledge* and teachers who find using emerging technologies too tiresome, tedious or difficult need to lift their game. It is not about Word, PowerPoint or a simple Internet search anymore. It is about using blogging, wikis, online applications for sharing knowledge, remashing that knowledge.

Shift happens – we need to change our teaching to educate the students for the world in which they will live, not the world we have left behind.

*Libre Knowledge is knowledge which may be acquired, interpreted and applied freely, it can be re-formulated according to one’s needs, and shared with others for community benefit.

The term refers to the cultural movement of Free/Libre knowledge inspired by the principles of free software, the success of peer production in the development of free software (and Wikipedia) and a conviction that knowledge should be accessible and sharable without restrictions.

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Introducing Karl Fisch

Nov 22nd, 2008 by

This year the VITTA conference theme is “Shift Happens”. I first emailed Karl Fisch back in April to ask if he would consider being one of our keynotes, however other commitments prevented his attending. As I have been avidly following his blog since the beginning of last year, and even put together my own remix to show the staff at my school in term 4 last year (which included aspects of various other videos of similar vein) this was rather disappointing. However a few weeks later he blogged about his intention to attend NECC 2008 in San Antonio. As Renee, Roland and Jill were attending NECC also I emailed Karl and broached the subject of him meeting them and allowing them to record an interview to be shown in the first session of the conference. He agreed!

As I have volunteered to introduce the video of the interview I have put together the following intro – I hope it does Karl and his amazing presentation and video justice. He is truly a fascinating man, not scared of pushing the boundaries, or stepping on toes, and totally passionate about education and using technology in education.

Thank you Karl.

At a school called Arapahoe High School in Denver Colorado, in August 2006, a teacher called Karl Fisch was invited by his school administration to speak at one of the first staff meetings for the school year. Karl was involved in staff professional development and would often provide updates for the staff on new and exciting technologies. But this time Karl wanted to focus on a “Vision” of where teachers should be headed. So he remixed content from numerous sources*, added some music, and created a thought provoking PowerPoint Presentation entitled “Did You Know”. He hoped that this presentation would get the Arapahoe staff thinking and start conversations about the world their students were entering, what these students would need to be successful in the 21st century, and the impact this might have on what teachers were doing in their classrooms.

He placed the original presentation onto his blog, with the comment “I was very nervous about showing this and how it would go over, but it seemed to have its intended effect … I would be interested in feedback from anybody who decides to download it”. Little could he predict that his presentation and the follow up videos would take the world by storm, and a little more than two years later various versions, remixes and updates of “Shift Happens” have been downloaded over 10 million times from YouTube, TeacherTube, GoogleVideo and others. Karl Fisch, you certainly did start conversations.

Karl has since made two more thought-provoking videos – “What If?” and “2020 Vision”, and his blog post “Is it okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?” won the 2007 edublogs award for “Most Influential Post”.  He is an incredibly modest and humble man, and still teaches at Arapahoe High School. When I first emailed him to see if he could speak at this conference his reaction was “I am honoured to be asked”. Unfortunately other commitments prevented him from attending, but on reading a post on his blog I discovered he would be at the NECC Conference in San Antonio.  As Roland, Renee and Jill would be there also, I wondered if perhaps I could organise for them to meet and interview him, and luckily he agreed. So I in turn am very honoured to introduce “Making Shift Happen”

*Karls sources included educational author and creator of the Landmark Project and ClassBlogmeister, David Warlick; author and NY Times Foreign Affairs Columnist Thomas Friedman; educational author and creator of TechWorks, Ian Jukes; and author, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil

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Educating for Creativity

Nov 17th, 2008 by

This video from www.ted.com from June 2006 features creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. I hope you enjoy it!

How Schools Kill Creativity

Interestingly I initially tried to embed this video from the ted.com site, but could not get it to work at all. I then decided to find the same video on YouTube and try again… it workedfirst time :-)

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The Happy Ending

Nov 17th, 2008 by

But this is my first blog you say? How can we be to the end already?

Well at least it is happy!

So what does the end mean if there is no beginning?

OK so I am talking in circles… the happy ending is that if you are an educational blogger, everyone wins. You, your students, your colleagues, and the wider educational community. Everyone is happy.

To blog, or not to blog? That is the question.

You are happy because you have shared your thoughts, your experience, your knowledge, your insights and your resources, and that gives you that warm fuzzy feeling we all get when we do something which benefits others, without them asking for it to be done.

And your students, colleagues and the educational community are happy, because they have been given something for free – and everyone loves something for free.

In my 30 or so years of teaching I have known teachers who would guard the resources they had created like pitbulls, never wanting to share “I spent time creating this, why should I share it with you – go do your own work” Hopefully most of those “teachers” have retired, for they had little to give back to the world. Thankfully these days we tend to work in teams, sharing as much as we can.

And so along comes Mr. Technology. He is a teacher with an amazing vault of knowledge, expertise, experience and resources, bursting at the seams, and he is eager to share them with the world.

I used to teach a subject called “Computer Science” which then became Information Technology, which has now evolved into ICT, and I am often asked by students “What does the C stand for in ICT?” Well, the answer is simple – Information, and Technology are obvious, but alone or together they achieve nothing without Communication.

I have started a few blogs, and wikis, and I have some websites around, but THIS is for YOU – the students, teachers, principals and educators of the world – I only hope I can give back a fraction of what I have learned.

Stay tuned.

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