I like use the analogy of serving up food to students as a way of describing teaching and learning. Imagine serving up scrambled eggs on toast every day to students. Ok, so some variation is needed so I add a bit of bacon or tomato or cheese (they like cheese!) to vary the menu. I think kids would eventually get tired of the same old food. Some may even refuse to eat it. Sure we can starve them but that won't change the basic pedagogy.

Then the realisation hits… why don’t we let the kids design their own menus and eat their own food, or even share it around. That would make food much more interesting and engaging. I’m sure the kids could teach me a thing or two about food but I would still have to direct them. We can't eat steak all the time - there are constraints, but it would be much better than eggs on toast every day.

Theoretically, at the end of learning experiences with new pedagogies, students should breeze through standardised tests that measure mastery of curricular content. Of more importance would be measuring the full range of students’ deep learning competencies: 1) students’ mastery of the learning process, including their ability to master new content; 2) students’ key future skills, including their abilities to create new knowledge using the collaboration and communication skills necessary for high-level value creation; 3) students’ proactive dispositions and levels of perseverance in the face of challenges; and 4) the effect of students’ work products on intended audiences or problems. Technology can theoretically be harnessed to support all of these types of measures, but we have so far seen few clear examples of this happening. (Pg 40. A Rich Stream)

It was announced this week that in 1985 Apple introduced its first 1:1 program in American schools. That’s 30 years ago. We have had technology in our schools here in Australia for more than 20 years. I remember buying a room full of 286 PC’s for $50 each and using them in a thin client network in 1997. My question is why are we still saying “Theoretically….” Why is it taking so long for the general teaching population to understand the benefits of a digital approach to these new pedagogies? In the reading, Fullan and Langworthy (2014) puts forward the contention that new pedagogies will promote a greater mastery of student learning where students will create new knowledge, show greater perseverance and promote their work to a wider range of audiences. These are valuable outcomes which need to be established beyond theories. Am I to assume that schools that have had a 1:1 program for the last 20 years have had little to show in comparison to the old tried and proven methods of teaching?

21^st Century Pedagogy – Change Educational DNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Ij_ZnmAHU

Yes, Let's change the DNA of teachers. I'm all for that, but where do we start? Surely we need to start at our teaching institutions as young teachers now will have grown up in a digital environment. They should have a good idea on how to embrace deep learning rather than propagate traditional ideas. Or are traditional ideas impressed upon them once they have secured a position in a school? It is my experience in mentoring preservice teachers is that they are driven by the same constraints of assessment as everyone else. They are more concerned about adopting "acceptable practice" than attempting the type of innovation we are promoting. Changing the DNA of teachers will be a challenging task indeed!

21st-Century PLNs for School Leaders
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/21st-century-PLNs-school-leaders-george-couros

The conclusion of George Couros's article about 21st-Century PLNs for School Leaders is worth highlighting; Gaining the skills of using Twitter and blogging certainly opens ... "up your own learning to the world, you will be surprised not only how your knowledge elevates, but how your passion for teaching and learning will benefit as well." These skills makes us media savvy and able to better communicate our ideas and views. With a proliferation of digital environments it is important for teachers to become the authors and producers of media thereby participating on a more active level. At least that's a start.

What are …..

My current feelings and reactions to my experience in this course:

At the moment I feel sort of isolated. I appear to be the only one posting anything. Is this a learning community? Who am I supposed to be connecting with? Perhaps I’m missing something? The readings and video’s are engaging me and I am thinking around these. Some of these issues are not new to me such as the notion that education is built on a production line mentality. I would like to respond to this but I don’t want to cloud the atmosphere.

What I am learning and what have been the most powerful learning experiences for me:

I have always had a deep respect for Bloom but I lingered on the old taxonomy. Recently I took a concerted look at the new taxonomy and was blown away. Why didn’t I do this earlier?

The knowledge dimension	The cognitive process dimension
	Remember	Understand	Apply	Analyse	Evaluate	Create
Factual
Conceptual
Procedural
Meta-cognitive

Another thing I have learned is how the normal distribution curve applies applies to the human construct. This helps me understand why I need to differentiate my teaching and learning.

What I feel my students are learning:

I spoke to my students about metacognition today. We talked about why it’s important to articulate and think about their own thinking and learning. I did this because hopefully it will lead to self awareness and contribute to a sense of maturity and empathy. Being empathetic helps collaboration and leadership skills and makes for better learners. My desire is to keep this conversation going with students for the next couple of years.  

A significant event for me and how I felt and reacted:

Last year we tried to establish a digital learning relationship with a Chinese school. It not only didn’t work but I felt we didn’t get off first base. It turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined even though the research we read up on predicted the exact same outcome. We are still getting overtures from similar schools but I am now very wary. It took a lot of time and effort for very little result.

Issues or questions: (include professional learning needs, problems, concerns, frustrations)

Frustrations … Hmm that’s a good one. I’ll save this when I get to know you all a bit better.

My response to the reading ~  From ChalkBoards to Tablets: The Digital Conversion of the K - 12 Classroom.

I pretty sure that this text response should go on another place, such as my mentors blog but I'll put it here for now.

The reading is in the American context so there are some considerable differences in the way both our educational systems operate.

The American Common Core Standards referred to in the reading are similar to ours but are nowhere near as rigorous as AusVELS. Take for example yr 7 English. We have standards for Reading, Writing, speaking and Listening and each descriptor is subdivided into Language Literature and Literacy, a total list of 31 standards. The American Common Core Standards for Yr 7 English cover Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas and Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity. Their standards total 10.

Traditionally we have been a number of years behind the USA in terms of educational progress. However this paper shows we are holding our own quite well in regard to the use of digital technologies in the classroom. As this paper was written in 2012 and presented in 2013, in digital terms it is aging quickly.

The five transformative factors mentioned in the paper that are driving change can be related to Australian conditions.

1. Our VELS provided good digital pathways right from the beginning when it was introduced. There was concern that teachers would have a vastly differing appreciation of the effective attainment levels in the dimensions of ICT for visualising thinking, ICT for creating and ICT for communicating. And this can be related to the standards as a whole; namely what is the qualitative expectation? The new digital technologies (yet to be released) will proved to be far more rigorous and prescriptive in terms of the type of thinking that is required for the digital age.

2. Internet connectivity is a massive issue. Our school regularly overshot our Internet usage by over 100% and the Department provided connection was proven to be inadequate. Web pages froze and timed out regularly. Students and Teachers were frustrated. The only way forward was to purchase our own bandwidth which is what we did. It was a heavy ($30,000 pa) but necessary cost. Most other Secondary schools we know of did the same thing.
   
3. Funding is also an important factor. Greater dependency on Internet technology certainly brings better parent, student, school communication paths but the cost is great. Compass is a great tool in this regard but costs us about $40,000 pa. A more refined LMS like Quanta will certainly enhance the collection of better data but come at a cost. And lets not forget the cost of upgrading infrastructure like aging servers, switches and wireless access points as well as the upgrading of CAT 6 cabling to fiber … and the list goes on.
   
4. As mentioned above, digital solutions like Compass enhance school to home communications in ways never thought possible. Last year we made reports available as a PDF download and only printed reports if requested. It used to take us a full weekend to photocopy and collate the reports, ready for distribution. Now it takes a few hours for one person to post all reports online.
   
5. Business will always scream out for more digitally literate workers. I think it is more important for schools to prepare students to be lifelong learners and to know how to take charge of their own learning.

In the charts 1 and 2 which describe the case for digital conversions which are happening today hardly bear comment as the findings are not surprising. Yes, as an attitude it is perceived that the use of technology is important to student success. Yes, all indicators show Principals and teachers all value digital tools as important in supporting personal professional growth.

The table 1 showing the perceived major obstacles teachers faced in using technology at school are all normal reactions. There are not enough computers for students to use, school filters and firewalls are still an issue (but less so if the school can unblock sites) there is never enough professional development available and there are external educational authorities which interfere in school needs. We in Australia can relate to most of these and will continue to do so for some time yet.

The issue of mobile devices, like the student owned smartphone, is interesting. The cost of data plans will continue to drop and the bandwidth speed will continue to increase. Students will use these if schools make the access to materials and resources (like facebook) difficult. They will take charge. But I have issue with phones as learning devices. I realise you can get phones with big screens but they are still hopeless at reading text and getting information off web sites. They will answer the need in an emergency but for regular use? I don’t think so. Tablets are OK and they can be connected to the phone’s data plan so a cheap $50 tablet may be the way to go.

The notion of the ‘flipped classroom’ is also an interesting one. Imagine if all teachers practiced flipping their classes. Student’s homework load would become unbearable. I can only see this working where there is a radical transformation in a schools use of digital technology to the point where the timetable is reduced to afternoon programs and students are completely self directed.

In my mind the biggest issue for the future is the amount of change teachers must embrace if they are to stay current. It is no quirk of data that in Chart 7 teachers reacted quite differently to parents, principals and administrators on the question of ‘Should Teachers’ Evaluations Include an Assessment of Technology Usage?’ From my experience they know that they could do more to be digitally literate. Yet their major constraint is lack of time to be trained. Our educational system has worked out perfectly how much time a teacher needs to prepare, teach and assess their students. It is designed to make sure there is very little slack time. But it is built on an old model which worked fine in days gone past. Why should a teacher burn their own time learning digital skills which they are not sure will make them any better at teaching than the traditional methods which are working just fine right now. The challenge may well be getting past the level of digital action where a teacher says “OK kids, put it in a Word document and email it to me ….“

The best PD days we have run is where we have surveyed staff in the areas they would like to learn. We then compile a list of the most popular activities and post a join up list. Staff have reacted positively to this but the trick is to get them to maintain their newly acquired skills. They may be interested in learning about Edmodo, for example, but if they don’t use it or they have a problem accessing it the learning will wash out and the training will be wasted.