New Zeland General Election - Education D-Day?

Today is the general election in New Zealand. The current government, with its controversial education policy and attitude to the schooling sector, is still riding high in terms of it popularity - around 50%! They seem to have got it right with the general population (or generally anyone not involved in our schooling sector) in saying that our school system must do better and National Standards will help make that happen! As Ken Robinson said once - no one wants to lower standards - so why has this struck such a connection in our country? It seems that the sound bite and out of context remarks that our education minister has made on our 'poor' achievement rates (1 in 5 leaving school not able to read, write or do maths!) has given the government the 'mandate' they want while our successes are over shadowed.  Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General in his opening address in Washington on the 7 December 2010 stated that the new PISA identifies several countries as the strongest overall performers. These are Shanghai, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

The latest flyer from the New Zealand Principals Federation included this reflection from the President, Peter Simpson;

"Meanwhile our profession has become more alienated from its natural policy discussion forums. The environment becomes more competitive and more privatised which undermines the whole concept of public education and creates a culture of distrust rather than trust, openness and collaboration."

But I fear that the battle of perception has been lost and the reality is that the general population like the idea of national standards - they sound good!  People seem to not see the irony of recognising their own child as an individual and the uniqueness of their own development but then expecting their schooling to be reduced to a series of benchmarks - being achieved in a sequential and straight line fashion!

The ethos of our national curriculum is premised on the belief that every child is unique, learning does not progress in a straight line and every child will learn in their own way and at their own pace.  Assessment and monitoring of progress happens along the way and the individual child’s progress is reported and discussed with their parents regularly.

We are at a crossroads with one political party saying more openness and accountability for our primary and secondary schools will continue to improve standards.  The age of league tables and school ranking has arrived in New Zealand.  How ironic when the example of this practice overseas has achieved the opposite of its intention.  A narrowing of the curriculum and an increasing disconnection of the learners gives what sort of employable skills?

As NZPF President Peter Simpson stated, "Everywhere else in the world, National Standards and its sister policy National Testing, has failed. Early adopters are now rejecting such policies and they look to countries like ours with our world class curriculum to lead them out of their National Testing wilderness. The irony of this situation is overwhelming. What these countries are finding is that the kind of accountability that comes with such policies negatively changes the whole culture of the education environment. It engenders disconnect between the professionals, the Ministry and Minister."

This is the situation our education system and our schools finds itself in.   Today is akin to an Education D-Day!

Marching to a different beat

Our kids come to school with this creativity and the love of learning - how do we do school so we don't take it out of them?  As a society, as a country what does it take to create a happy, creative, motivated human being?  How do we balance the pull of the traditionally orientated curriculum with the flavour and intent of the actual New Zealand Curriculum??

Skennynz made this following clip after a brilliant day listening to Lester Flockton explore the National Standards. He put this together to share with his staff in order to create discussion and debate about the complex issues surrounding assessment, intending it to draw attention to the fact that children have different abilities and needs and that we as educators need to develop the whole child.

The idea for the song came to Harry Chapin when his secretary told him about her son who brought his report card home from school one day. The teacher had written a note in the card saying: "Your son is marching to the beat of a different drummer, but don't worry we will soon have him joining the parade by the end of the term."

Moving the Front Line

One world war started because of train timetables and empire arrogance.  The other started because everyone thought that no sane person would really make it happen so giving in was ok.  So how does that short (and very simplistic) history lesson of how the two worst world wars that the world has seen apply remotely to education in New Zealand or to what I do in one small primary school?!?


Well, here we are, already a decade into the 21st Century and as Derek Wenmoth said in his latest post 'The state of digital education' ..." we have...thousands of independently operating, often competing and generally struggling entities called schools around the country – each trying to re-invent the wheel, and the majority still not grasping the significance of the digital revolution that is sweeping the world."  And it troubles me, because I believe he is right, that we find our schools and our wider education sector in such a predicament.  

2010 was the official year the revised curriculum was to be implemented, or in reality carrying on the process of, but it was a document that encouraged schools to reflect on and develop the big picture that school life is a part of -  to think outside the 3 R's box and it had (and has) the potential to shift a schools pedagogy and thinking of the rapidly changing educational landscape of the 21st Century learner.  It said things like:


"All New Zealand students, regardless of where they are situated, should experience a rich and balanced education that embraces the intent of the national curriculum. The principles should underpin and guide the design, practice, and evaluation of curriculum at every stage. The values, key competencies, and learning areas provide the basis for teaching and learning across schools and within schools. This learning will contribute to the realisation of a vision of young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners." 
(The school curriculum - design and review - TKI)

2010 was also the year that the November mail surprise was meant to begin to take effect - those curriculum look-a-like trio of books called the national standards and the associated justifying soundbites - '1 in 5 failing' (though not often finished with the clarifying remark of 'at NCEA Level 2'!) '20% of schools are failing our students' etc etc.


Don't get me wrong - I am not anti-standards.  Every high performing school, should and do, use a range of nationally referenced assessment tools, as well as day to day interactions to make judgements on how an individual is progressing and what their next learning goal needs to be.  But it needs to be done (as the national curriculum says) by providing a "rich and balanced education" that will "contribute to the realisation of a vision" for each individual student - not on some 'back mapped, looks like the curriculum but it isn't' set of books that put everyone on a standardised and linear pathway!  


But, to many people the current 'sound bites' of education make sense.  Primary education is about Reading, Writing and Maths.  It sounds right that there should be one set of standards so we can compare our kids against each other, as they should all achieve things at the same time as everyone else - shouldn't they?  We should know if little Jonny is failing at age 5 - shouldn't we?  Shame on him for not progressing like everyone else his age!?!


I believe this potentially high stakes narrowing of what really matters in the curriculum has distracted schools right when the potential of the visionary curriculum was being realised.  It has lulled many into losing sight of just how significant the shift in the real educational world is.  That as Derek said "...the majority (are) still not grasping the significance of the digital revolution that is sweeping the world."  The problem also is that the majority of our community's relate to school as it being what they remember it was like when they were there.  That it is the place for learning to read, write and do arithmetic!  That this thing called e-learning is a fad - anything digital is just playing - wasting time - not learning - its not real school work!  


This is where the warfare reflection comes into play.  There is a war going on around the heart and soul of what school is.  The real shift in how we do school - that balances the curriculum needs of foundation and enriching learning - will only be authentic and gain real traction if our teachers, principals and community's grasp the concept of it.  Part of that shift must happen with the profession itself as exampled by Derek's quote.  Once a school has an authentic idea of what e-learning and this digital revolution is then they can actually strategically plan to go 'over the top'.  It's a dangerous place - no mans land - and yet if we can shift the front line (once we know where we want to go!) and push back the traditional model of school that seems to be being reintroduced then the rewards for our schools, our learners and indeed the future of our country will be immeasurable.  As many Asian countries throw off the yoke of standardisation, conformity and the raising of test scores at all costs to encourage the skills of creativity and entrepreneurship we seem to 'back mapping' our way to raising standards?!?


Authentic, creative learning that engages and empowers our learners to "seize the day" (Carpe Diem!) is personalised, organic and almost un-measurable - something you can't test or write a national standard for!  The rallying cry for dynamic and future focussed leadership in our schools is reaching a crescendo - do we have the capacity across our schools and in our political leadership to respond appropriately?!?

We don't know what we don't know!

'iPads in schools - are we missing the point?'

This is a great article that is well worth a read.  It examples the 'great divide' that can happen with the exponential shift in how some schools are 'doing' their curriculum and the community's understanding of how that change will benefit their children.  Some selected quotes are:


"Decisions about which tools to use – from school camps and calculators to iPads - become a lot easier to make when you understand the purpose and value of education, and the cost of not doing it well.  What this underlines is the inherent gap between educational research and practice on one hand and community conservatism on the other.
...Together, the Orewa debate and the NZ Institute paper highlight the disconnection between communities and the way schools implement New Zealand’s education policy...


A post from @markherring on his blog titled 'Line in the sand - it starts with purpose' looks at the different approaches schools are taking with their curriculum.  One example he gives is that of taking a more holistic approach - one that is trying to develop the whole child, not just the academic talent - by investigating different approaches and tools in enhancing the schools curriculum (this may even include iPads?!?)


This linked article also highlights the need for increased attention to maintaining and enhancing the partnership with parents.  A key part of this is communicating with our parent community just how school has changed and why it needs to keep changing to stay relevant to todays learners.  However at different times this communication and partnership can be approached differently depending on what outcome you are trying to achieve.  The illustration below from Lester Flockton's NZ Curriculum resource that he put out a couple of years ago with NZEI tells it well:

The iPad debate actually demonstrates that the idea of 'elearning' and its place in a child's schooling is still not understood by a major section of our population.  It is therefore essential to get the level of interaction right with out community so this 'disconnection' does not get worse.  Or is this a bigger issue of how the public perception of teacher and school professionalism has deteriorated over the years??  Some of this problem may be ours but it may also be those sound bites - 1 in 5??


"So when our teaching profession, working from the best research available and their intimate knowledge of the students they work with, asks what is needed to make sure all our learners can be successful, why is there such an emotional reaction against their advice? Do we not trust our teaching profession to know what is best for students’ learning? 

...If the community and the teaching profession were on the same page and had a common understanding and valuation of education, then the conversation would not focus on whether an exercise book or an iPad should be on next year’s stationery list at one school."

I Love Teaching Conference, July 2011

Over the first two days of our end of Term 2 break our whole teaching staff attended the I love teaching 2011 conference at the Ascot Hotel, Invercargill, New Zealand.  Usually we have to travel quite a distance (ie the North Island!) for any professional learning of this quality so it is a real credit to the Conference Convenor, (Marlene Campbell) and the committee (Kerry Hawkins, Alison Cook, Peter Forde, Allan Mitchell) that we have an opportunity of this calibre on our doorstep every two years!

There was a wide range of very high calibre speakers but right now I want to share just a few of my 'lightbulb' moments!

I really enjoyed James' presentation - both his keynote and his workshop.  One key point was:

Getting the balance right throughout the school day on introducing / discussing concepts that push the student into the pit or conflict or wobble zone (where new learning and understanding is constructed / takes place) and yet gives enough scaffolding so the learner gets the chance to reach that Eureka! moment.

An important part of this process is the use of effort centered praise for what a student is doing - not praise telling them how smart they are or what a good score they got!

As this image shows the problems solved on the third test after different types of praise was given shows the effect on the students results!

I believe the challenge for our school from this is that we have to carefully consider the balance that the structure of our day to day curriculum across our learning environments is giving to the process of Concept, Conflict/Wobble, Construct, Eureka!  Getting this right within a schools curriculum framework is a bit like walking a tightrope as we try to balance different teachers passions with learners needs and community wishes.  A good inquiry scaffold that is articulated and understood across our school gives our foundation learning areas an enriching concept on which our learners can 'hang their understanding on' along with the chance to 'wobble' before reaching that 'Construct' and 'Eureka!' moment.

 Wilson McCaskill

 

An inspiring and highly engaging speaker who is extremely passionate about helping all teachers and learners to chance to change the student, teacher relationship from one based on control and compliance to one based on guidance and self-determination.  In his keynote and workshops Wilson worked on introducing and demonstrating with us the words and strategies that empower students to manage their own behaviour, improve their emotional intelligence and increase their chances of success in life.  Perhaps the best way to appreciate this initiative is to watch an example of this learning in action!

As a school the potential for this to further enhance the positive culture of our school is huge and I look forward to discussing with staff where to next with this powerful initiative!

Allie Mooney is someone who you will always learn something from.  She gives you a reminder about knowing who you are, what you see your strengths as and what you need to understand about appreciating and understanding others!  

Our school is richer for the diversity we have around our staff team and it is something that I think is very important for everyone that we appreciate and value all types.  There is great strength in diversity and as staff changes happen in the life of the school I believe it is important to keep that balance right!

"Pressing The Right Buttons" 

Curriculum Connection!

Last Friday Jan, Mark and I attended a Curriculum seminar in Gore facilitated by Professor Lester Flockton on the direction and implementation journey of our school curriculum.   This day was a great opportunity to reflect on what we are doing regarding the key four point direction of the New Zealand Curriculum and has given me cause for some continued reflection on the following questions:

1.  What are the learning priorities for our students in a balanced curriculum? We want to ensure that we give value to both the foundation areas of Maths and English and the enriching areas of the curriculum; Science, Social Sciences, The Arts, Health & PE and Technology.

2.  What are the characteristics of effective teaching that we choose to uphold in our school? As a teaching team our staff spend a great deal of time sharing and reflecting on the individual programmes that happen in each room and what we can do both in and outside of the classroom to further support the learning needs that are identified.

3.  How will we interpret the national curriculum in ways suited to our school and its students? As a school we work to develop a localised curriculum that reflects the learning needs of our students and the goals of the local community.  This is the benefit of having a self governing school with its own Board of Trustees where we can work to integrate government initiatives such as National Standards with our own school expectations without loosing the strength and engagement of a balanced curriculum that is key in giving the foundations areas real life contexts.

4.  What strategies will we use to give every encouragement and opportunity to parents and whanau to engage with their children's school learning? The developments in teaching and learning has meant there is a difference between the reality and perception of what happens each and every day in a modern primary classroom.  The physical environment may look the same (as we remember it) but the focus on your child and their next learning goals is more specific.  Add in the new tools that eLearning brings, the recognised strength of collaboration and the recognition that identifying the different learning stages for students, rather than by the page of the book they are on, means that school today needs to brings its community onboard to share the journey!

Just some initial thoughts!

Professional Learning Support

The first week of term has been a busy one.  One particular highlight for me was a meeting of our ICT cluster sub group (3 schools) which was facilitated by another local Principal - Alison Cook.  We had asked her to take us through the inquiry planning journey that her school has developed over the last 4 years.  Alison shared how she has implemented an inquiry process that is structured around 4 key understandings, indicators of how this looks across the different levels and then a planning framework that sets a road map for where the inquiry could go.   At the same time her staff ensure that it is still flexible enough to be altered to reflect students' interest after the initial tuning in stage so that it can't be called just an over planned unit of work.  Their inquiries are locally focused and reflect both prior learning needs and current wants of the students.  Alison has developed a process that manages to make an assessment of the key understandings quite manageable and meaningful and which provide her school with some excellent reflective assessments on where to next for future inquiries and robust achievement data which shows the areas of strength, concern and interest across the school.

It was a great opportunity to discuss, at times question, and to then just listen to this incredible journey of a fellow professional who was more than happy to share her expertise and documentation - openly and selflessly.  It gave me and my management team an incredible snapshot to reflect on alongside what we have been working on at our school and our next step!

I really enjoyed the morning and believe that it is people like Alison Cook who remind me that it is in our colleagues - both near and far - and the networks that we develop with each other that gives us the chance to develop our own schools to be the best learning environments they can be.  As a Principal (which in your own school can be a lonely job) the support, encouragement and just the chance to hear another person's journey can remind us that we are not alone on the road!

If you're ever in the deep south a visit to Alison and Bluff Community School is well worth the effort.  Her localised curriculum is an amazing example of what was intended by the revised curriculum (that now seems to be slightly sidelined?!?)  To hear and observe her school will be an experience you will not forget!

21 Things That Will Be Obsolete in School by 2020

Had to link this one - I have summarised the list below and linked to the blog post where you can read the original detail on each one - some may be more pertinent for high schools - maybe not??  I'm going to try and comment on each one over time on what it might mean for our place!?!

21 Things That Will Be Obsolete by 2020

1.  Desks gone! - 2 classrooms down - 4 to go!

2.  Language Labs

3.  Computers - mix of iMac's, MacBooks and iPads happening!

4.  Homework

5.  The role of standardised tests in college admissions

6.  Differentiated instruction as a sign of a distinguished teacher

7.  Fear of Wikipedia

8.  Paperbacks

9.  Attendance Offices

10.  Lockers

11.  I.T. departments

12.  Centralised institutions

13.  Organisation of education services by grade

14.  Education schools that fail to integrate technology

15.  Paid/Outsourced professional development

16.  Current curricular norms

17.  Parent / Teacher conference night

18.  Typical cafeteria food

19.  Outsourced graphic and web design

20.  High School Algebra 1

21.  Paper!

Social Networking in Schools

While browsing the 40 odd posts summarised on Google Reader from the 'Committed Sardine' Blog that I hadn't yet read was one that I found really topical.  The pros and cons of Social Networking in Schools is something that our school is working through at the moment.  We have a generation of students to whom online networking is 'normal' and still highly engaging and rewarding for them in their learning journey while some teachers and parents - while mostly not negative about it - are unsure about something that is not natural to them.  As the linked post examples there are pros and cons to any social networking online and part of the development in use of them is to ensure that good procedures manage and minimise the risk without restricting the potential it brings to learning.

Part of reviewing our local goals and strategic plan this year will hopefully involve some good discussion with parents about how education is (and has to) change to meet the changing needs of our 21st century society and just how social networking / online collaboration fits in with this.  This is an exciting time as we attempt to keep our school and its learning environment relevant to todays students while also ensuring that partnership with our parent community is enhanced rather than disconnected!

Sustainable Leadership

Since coming back to school from the NZPF conference I have been reading Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink's book on Sustainable Leadership.  They list seven key principles of sustainability in educational change and leadership.  I want to list them here and then over time I hope to come back and reflect on them in more detail as I continue to read the book over the term break!  They are:

1.  Depth - Sustainable leadership matters.
2.  Length - Sustainable leadership lasts.
3.  Breadth - Sustainable leadership spreads.
4.  Justice - Sustainable leadership does no harm to and actively improves the surrounding environment.
5.  Diversity - Sustainable leadership promotes cohesive diversity.
6.  Resourcefulness - Sustainable leadership develops and does not deplete material and human resources.
7.  Conservation - Sustainable leadership honors and learns from the best of the past to create an even better future.

How we engage and learn from others - Andy Hargreaves 1

To grow as a teacher, leader and school we have to find what is positive, optimistic and challenging from learning with other teachers, leaders and institutions.

You become a better teacher from learning from other good teachers.  You don't just learn from the biggest or the most powerful, you learn from sharing with some of the best, usually more than one!  One example tends to be overwhelming.  We have a staff of individuals that are very good at sharing and encouraging improvement in each other.  They may not always agree - but that is a good thing for in our diversity lies our strength as it is brought together by the shared purpose of whatever a particular initiative is trying to achieve.

Its the same for schools - you don't just look at one when you want to improve or reflect on what you are doing - you network with a number of them.  Like our ICT cluster we should be able to learn from each other.  Though for this to happen authentically it requires genuine trust and respect for what each other is doing.  This does not happen overnight but it can!  Otherwise, we are all just islands doing our own little thing and like the old saying goes - "united we stand, divided we fall!"

Learning time for self

Last week I attended the NZPF Conference in Wellington with around 800 other Principals and School Leaders.  While attending the keynotes, catching snippets of discussion around the trade hall and having in depth discussions with colleagues and friends from around the country my head became rather full of information that will take some weeks to work through.  Coming back to the real world of school for the last week of term means catching up with the happenings in house and the initiatives that we are working on locally and with other schools.  This is the real world and gives the context to what was a very powerful time and one that enables a return on the investment (time and money) for some time to come.  With the term break approaching at the end of the this week I look forward to listening to a couple of the keynotes again (yes I bought the discs!),  some light reading (on topics such as Sustainable Leadership by Professor Andy Hargreaves!) and then posting some reflections (hopefully for a comment or two!)

Watch this space...

Protect your Dreams

A short but very powerful clip - nothing more needed except your response...

Steve Spangler - How to be an Amazing Teacher

A great clip that reminds us of why its important to create unforgettable learning experiences - wonder, discovery and exploration!

The difference between good and great - a great teacher doesn't just teach facts they teach us this real world application - not just how to do something but why to do it. Unforgettable learning experiences- you may not always remember what you did in that class but you do remember that you loved being there!

The surprising truth about what motivates us

I found this an interesting presentation on what it is that really gets people to engage in their job/career/vocation.  According to this the three main motivating elements are:

1.  Being challenged - able to be self directed
2.  Mastery - getting better at stuff
3.  Making a Contribution - making the world a little bit better!

The majority of people want to feel that they are part of something meaningful.  I believe this is a key element for the majority of those involved in education and why our job is described as having a large vocation element rather than it being just a career.

I believe this ties in with the Simon Sinek TED talk blogged about below that examples the difference in businesses / schools that work on the 'WHY' before the 'HOW' and the 'WHAT'.  People believe if the direction is passionately shared?!?  Buy in follows??

Your thoughts?

The changing face of education

Learning @ School was a great opportunity to observe, discuss and interact with a lot of different individuals from all over the country about the potential for eLearning to impact on how we 'do' education. There are lots of tools and processes out there that promote cooperative, interactive and real thinking/problem solving situations for students today but there seems to be an increasing 'disconnect' with the 1 group we want involvement from - the parents of our students. They still see a lot of e stuff as fluffy and the extra bit rather than a real part of the learning process. How to shift / bring them along on the journey of learning that school is blazing is one that needs as much attention as the way we seek to structure our eLearning and eCompetencies within the school curriculum framework. The following talk from Sir Ken Robinson is one possible example of showing people just why this change is necessary.

Quotable quotes:

"The present time is the most stimulating period in the history of the earth and our children are distracted by boring stuff. " [Sir Ken Robinson]

"We are alienating millions of our youth who see no purpose in going to school." [Sir Ken]

"We have to go in opposition to standardisation which is systematically destroying the capacity for cognitive development." [Sir Ken]

It is one way to try and counter the seemingly opposite direction that we are currently being pushed in. One that seems to forget the amazing potential that the revised curriculum gave us in regards to developing a school curriculum that reflected local content and context and set the foundation for the development of true 21st century thinkers!

iPads in learning

Posted from the iPad breakout at L@S!

Some ideas of how these are being used in a NZ classroom

http://ipodsiphonesineducation.wikispaces.com/

http://learnersandthinkerswithipadsandipods.wikispaces.com/

iPads in classrooms - do's and don'ts!

http://learninginhand.com/do

You need a school iTunes account and a 'mother ship' laptop that goes 'with' them. Powered USB hub best way to charge and sync multiple iPads. Numbering each iPad wallpaper to individualize them.

ePortfolio platform debate?!?

Interesting discussion yesterday at the eportfolio forum hosted by Jaimen Lietze from Bethlehem College.  There was some great sharing about what different people are doing and even though the discussion tried to stay away from the platform debate an interesting point was thrown out there!  The Ministry of course are backing and have made free the 'myportfolio' aspect of mahara while the sharing that happened was mostly based in 'Ultranet'.  The point was made by one person about how this direction seemed to be in complete contrast to where the world is going - ie open source, free and transferable across multiple presentation platforms.  This in contrast to the paid for platform by schools where all info is held and when the student leaves it goes with them as a static pile of stuff on a flash drive / whatever.   The MOE made the point that myportfolio is aiming to be interoperable with the main 2 - Ultranet and KnowledgeNet - but the point made was that the ownership is still not with the person who creates the content - its managed by someone else.  His example was things like blogger are owned and administrated by the student and therefore can stay with them and 'alive' for ever.  Interesting debate and one not liked much by some people who have a vested interest?!?  Your thoughts??

** Here is a link to a presentation by Nick Rate (CORE) who is a bit of a guru on the ePortfolio journey.**

http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/nickrate/eportfolios-ls-2011

Getting to Learning@School Conference 22/2/11

Flew through Christchurch this morning - landed there at 8.30, flight out was delayed but we flew out at 10am - some 3 hours before the earthquake struck.  Glued to the news throughout the afternoon and really feel for everyone and what they are going through.  Going to be hard to concentrate tomorrow (if the conference goes ahead?!?)

What is eLearning @ MBS part 2?

Last year was a real 'sandpit' time with Inquiry Learning and the use and place of ICT tools in our teaching and learning.  Today we reflected on our e-learning journey so far.  With Mark introducing the concept of Teacher and Principal Inquiry (where we focus on something to do with our own practice or school development) and the Pod groups with 'e-buddies' it has given us cause to stop and ask the 'WHY' question of what we are doing and how.  This process became clearer after I watched the Simon Sinek TED talk blogged about below.  The connection between what he said and our schools journey with e-learning inspired my rough draft (the good ol' giant stickie) which we discussed today after I shared that TED talk as an introduction.

What is eLearning @ MBS part 1?

As our school enters the second year of our ICT & Inquiry (I would say eLearning) contract it finds us at an exciting point.  Last year had MBS buying / trying and talking about how the opportunity for using digital learning tools could make a real difference to teaching and learning in our classrooms.  The conversation ranged from seeing ICT as just adding some interest to what we already do, to seeing the development of the Inquiry Learning process becoming a core part of our curriculum framework.

The exciting thing is that we are having conversations that 12 months ago were not really possible.  It gives us the chance to now ask the 'why' question  - to work out the pedagogy / philosophy of what e-learning really means to our school (as we now know some of the things the 'tools' can do) before we get stuck in the detail of how we're going to do it and with what (just as the Simon Sinek TED talk exampled )!  If we get this right then it will truly make a difference to all our learning community - the students, the parents and the teachers!

First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy

Is it the 'Lone Ranger' that sets the trend or is the first follower that gives a trend the legitimacy of something that is more than a random act and therefore allows others to join??  Comments??

Just browsing through Jamin's presentation on e-portfolios that he presented late last year to his school colleagues at Bethlehem College (http://lietze.org/?p=415) - looking forward to talking through how its going with him at Learning @ School conference this year! I then checked out the link that someone had posted on his feedback to a TED talk on 'How great leaders inspire action'


(You need to view this so the next few comments make sense!)

I like how Simon Sinek explains how the 'why' described passionately will give true meaning to the how and the what (that is from the inside out!)  You need to know what you believe - why what you do is what you do.  It is only then that they will believe and be inspired also.  In the context of the school world it is the 'why' of each school culture that gives it a unique flavour - and the leadership and the sense of ownership and pride of the wider team that makes being at some schools much more that just a job!

Derek Wenmoth talked recently about 3 key words that are used in schools all around NZ. They are (outside in) curriculum, assessment, pedagogy - every teacher can talk about their school's curriculum, every teacher can talk about the way they assess their school's curriculum but how many can really talk about the pedagogy of their school - the why?? Some can, and so - just like Apple in the computer company world - they have more success and 'buy in' from all stakeholders (parents, staff, students). Jamin is doing the why - awesome. I am inspired to do the same and with a passionate staff (who understand the importance of pedagogy) and support from Mark Herring, our ICT2LRN facilitator - I am excited about where our journey is going!

Learning to fish or fishing to learn??

Just been spending time with Mark (our ICT2LRN facilitator) who is helping our ICT leads / pod leaders(!) to learn some tools and tricks that will help them share and inspire their teams on our e-learning journey! He made the comment that time spent giving them the tools to learn to fish is better than just giving them the fish!

For our school this means that time invested in ICT leads and all teachers to increase their understanding and use of how e-learning tools and skills can give a context to 'real time' reflection and growth which will effect change in the way we think about teaching and learning - both with our classes and each other, but with ourselves!

(and yes that is a photo of the mighty stags on the office wall!!)

Principal Inquiry

Year 2 of our ICT2LRN cluster has Mark getting us, as Principals, designing our own Principal Inquiry for our own schools and where we see our school - in my case Myross Bush - going. This is also a great example to our staff as Mark inspires them to design their own Teacher Inquiry for 2011. Watch this space!