Tag: John Pearce

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Powerful Learning – Conference at Toorak College July 21st/22nd

On the 21st and 22nd of July, Toorak College will be hosting ‘Powerful Learning‘ a conference that promises to be an exciting two days packed with a plethora of speakers with great ideas to share. We love to see you check out the program and consider registering for what will be a terrific professional development opportunity.

Screenshot 2014-07-07 14.37.20

Professor Guy Claxton will be opening and closing the conference, talking about Building Learning Power: What it means to create powerful learners.

Dr. Gerry White (Principal Research Fellow,  Teaching Learning and Transitions at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) ) will be keynoting about ‘The future of digital technologies in teaching and learning’.

Dr. Suzy Green will be keynoting about ‘Positive Education in Australia: creating flourishing students, staff and schools.’

Sarah Martin, Principal of Stonefield’s School in New Zealand, will be keynoting about ‘Accelerating Learning: What are the keys to success?’

Professor Mark Rose will be keynoting about Indigenous perspectives in education today.

Fay Jackson will be providing a closing keynote on day one entitled ‘Laughter, Tears and Honesty: Dealing with Mental Health the Best Way We Can. Oh and More Laughter’.

I’m also delivering a keynote. Once again, I’ve set myself a hard task. Here’s the abstract:

A vision for the future…maybe?
What might the teaching profession look like 15 years from now? How will technological changes and new forms of communication shape our schools and the way we teach? What could our classrooms look like and what might we need to think about to prepare for such a future?

Wish me luck on that one!

The full program can be downloaded here. 

There are other wonderful presenters in the workshop sessions including my friends Britt Gow, Glenn McMahon, John Pearce, Helen Stower and Kathryn Schravemade.

Hope to see you there!!

 

 

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Cybersafety- getting the message

I came across a great video to use for teaching responsible internet use from a Twitter link (thanks Heidi Chaves) today and was thrilled to hear the Australian accent. One of the things that has become apparent to me is the necessity to convey a message in not only student voice, but in an accent they can relate to. The cleverness of this video is pretty cool- even a hardened YouTube watcher will be impressed I’m thinking when you see those students walk out of the screen. I am giving a presentation to the Grade 5 and 6 students at my school this Thursday and I’ll be using this one with them. Unfortunately, I’m continuing to have problems loading YouTube videos using the URL and it’s impossible to grab the embed code so you’ll have to follow the link to see it. It’s worth it, so take the time to do so. I’m pretty sure you’ll be wanting to use it in your classrooms too.

Toorak College (my school) is a pilot school with The Allanah and Madeline Foundation’s Esmart initiative. Here’s what they are hoping to achieve;

The Alannah and Madeline Foundation’s Cybersafety and Wellbeing Initiative aims to make cybersafety a normal part of every young person’s life by equipping them to use technologies in ways that protect them from the associated risks.

The development of the initiative is informed by a number of cybersafety experts from across Australia.  The first major focus of the initiative is to help schools to create a cultural norm of smart, safe and responsible use of communications technologies.  The initiative will:

  • help schools develop policies and practices encouraging students to use technology responsibly
  • point schools to teaching resources on cybersafety, but also to resources to help them create a safe, respectful and caring environment
  • encourage schools to embrace the positives of technology for teaching practice and enhance young people’s learning
  • establish a system for schools to provide evidence that they are actively implementing these policies and practices
  • reduce the digital divide between adults and young people, so adults can become a credible source of advice on avoiding the risks of cyberspace.

    • We had a meeting of local pilot schools last week and I was quick to reinforce that I’m interested in keeping our students safe online, but I don’t want the fear factor message to be the driver. I want a balanced message delivered, one that acknowledges the benefits of sharing in collaborative online spaces. I was very happy to see the dot point above as part of their aims; ‘encourage schools to embrace the positives of technology for teaching practice and enhance young people’s learning’

    As part of our Esmart program, we are introducing the concept to our Senior School students at tomorrows assembly. We’re using the following series of videos, Your Photofate, as part of the presentation (Thanks John Pearce for posting the link to these videos on Twitter -they’re invaluable). Students are presenting to students; our teaching staff won’t be on stage. The students have scripted the presentation themselves and it’s our belief the message will have more meaning coming from them. We recognise the need for our students to see their teachers as credible sources of information about responsible internet use, and for that reason we’re embedding this into curriculum across Years 5 – 12. It’s our Teacher-Librarians who will be driving the teaching and I am very pleased about this. We realise all teachers need to take responsibility for this, but we want some focused instruction to start the discussions that need to take place continuously throughout the education of the students in our care.

    Here are the videos. They’re derived from the AdCouncil in the United States, but this message transcends international boundaries. Sexting has become an issue in communities the world over, largely due to the ubiquitous nature of mobile phones with cameras. I have little doubt many students are naive as to the consequences of their actions, hence the need for explicit teaching in our schools and homes to reinforce the message that what you post in online communities has far reach; consider carefully if you really want to share an image that you wouldn’t be comfortable having members of your family viewing.

    Choose what happens next

    Sorry

    Out of your hands

    I’m pretty sure the message will translate.

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    Lurker or Contributor, or maybe Innovator?

    I didn’t get to the DEECD‘s Innovation showcase on Friday. I’d sent in a proposal for a session but it was knocked back. The fact that I teach in the Independent system and not the Public system may have had something to do with that, but that’s probably just sour grapes from me!!

    Thanks to the very obliging John Pearce, who is truly one genuinely nice guy, I’ve been able to partake in some of the experience by reading through his Cover it Live embeds on his blog. Cover it Live is an application that allows you to ‘live blog’ your observations as you watch someone present. John has embeds on his blog from presentations delievered by Jason Smith, co-founder of TeacherTube and Martin Westwell, Director of the Flinders Centre for Science Education in the 21st Century.

    John recounts something Jason referred to that has me intrigued; 

    the 99:1 rule 

    • 90% of people in online communities are visitors, (lurkers)
    • 9% are early adopters who add to the commentary and/or content but can’t really be depended on
    • 1% are the givers who continue to maintain the innovation

    I don’t know where he got those figures from, but if they’re right, they have implications for the use of social networks in schools. I know that the Ning we are using for Yr 9 has some regular contributors, but it also has a spread across the year level. I know it’s artificial to some extent because we ask the students to make contributions because it relates to curriculum, but I am heartened by the fact that forum topics are being created by students. Of the 34 forum topics posted, 15 have been initiated by the students. That’s a pretty good number posted by a spread of students across the year level.

    There’s no denying also, that there are students for whom this forum is just not their thing. And that’s OK; you can never guarantee that any teaching method you employ is going to hit the mark for every kid you teach. But maybe they’re lurking?? It’s something I hadn’t really considered. I think what I need to do is set up a Survey Monkey for the end of this term to attempt to get some feedback and derive some statistics from which I can draw some conclusions.

    Lurking is something that I find very interesting. By nature, I’m a participant and not a lurker, so I find it a little hard to understand why some wouldn’t want to enter the conversations. But then again, I’m the ‘E’ personality type who’d prefer to go the party rather than sit by the fire with a book. I think that translates to my online life as well. But those figures Jason referred to are mind boggling for me. I suppose if there are 90% of people out there lurking (a word I really don’t like – the connotations are sinister I think) then that accounts for the small number of comments in proportion to the number of hits on this blog. 

    And as for the 1% of innovators, well I guess I can see that in the networks I operate in. When I first started reading educational blogs I had this perception that the base  was huge; I now know that is not the case.  I suppose that translates to our teaching communities as well; if you think about schools you’ve worked in, who is innovative and who sits back and lets others come up with new ideas? What proportion of your school community does this relate to and do the figures translate to the 99:1 rule?

    Mmmmnn….interesting things to consider. Thanks John for providing me with a PD experience on my weekend. 

    *Update – read this post re research on the 99:1 rule. Makes for interesting reading.

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    “Books, newspapers face battle in dawn of digital revolution”. So says the Geelong Advertiser.

    Yesterday I posted about the Geelong Advertiser and the interview I conducted with them after they contacted me via Twitter. At that stage I’d searched the site but couldn’t find any article referencing my name.

    Today I received this tweet from John Pearce;

    mrpbps @jennyluca The Geelongaddy article re U and someone called Pesce who dominates conversation 🙂 is now online Go Jenny http://bit.ly/3fkxj

    Mark Pesce’s comments were the main focus of the article. He made reference to the function of Libraries in the future and this is where my comments were slotted in. Here’s what was mentioned;

    While it sounds like a new world order, Mr Pesce believes people will turn to libraries to restore order in their own lives.

    The public library will be where people go to catalogue the huge data shadows they are creating with digital photographs and recordings, he said, while books will become archives.

    “Today librarians keep catalogues to keep books ordered. They are going to pass this on for you to use.

    “It’s going look different but it’s going to help order your digital lives,” he said.

    Toorak College librarian Jenny Luca said libraries will become a place for discussion and connection.

    “It’s absolutely essential that we look at the new technology and find ways to make it meaningful for the kids that we teach. The collaborative nature of those tools is such now that we will actually make connections with the people behind the keyboards and learn from those people.”

    But books will still have a role. Fiction is still a vital collection, Ms Luca said, while non-fiction was losing relevance to online content

    I have to admit to being pretty chuffed to see my name in an article alongside Mark Pesce’s. Thanks Peter Farago for interviewing me and getting the article to print.  Special thanks go to John Pearce for making the effort to let me know the article had been published. 
     

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