Class of 2017 - What will they say about their teachers at their class reunion?

                                                            School Prefects - 1933  

Over the past two days I have spent time talking and remembering my school years at Christchurch Girls's High School. We were the class of 1967 - 50years ago! It is quite scary to think about how quick the years have passed. It was wonderful to catch up with ex-classmates, find out what has happened since we left school and of course discuss our old teachers, the school, our two Principals, friends who were absent, look at the old photos and discuss our education compared with today.

One of our classmates produced the school rules, hand-typed (with errors) on 4 yellowed pages.Yes, we did wear hats and gloves, were silent in assembly, rode our bikes in single file in Hagley Park (both hands on the handle bars) and certainly did not talk to students from Christchurch Boys' High or Christ's College!

However, as we shared what we have all been doing with our lives and we discussed our education, it was obvious that we all felt that we had all received a solid academic education. Yes, by today's standards of ILE's, student agency, coding, flipped learning etc, it was very traditional - but that was 50 years ago. Some girls in the "A" stream learnt Latin and French, while the "G" stream could continue with French and some classes where University was not seen as a choice, did typing.

As we talked about what we had all done with our lives, many of us went on to be teachers, principals, doctors, and lawyers. Many had Masters degrees  or a PhD. There were farmers, women who worked in a wide variety of business ventures or were business owners, even a Minister. Saturday saw 55 women at lunch sharing our lives and memories of school. It is true that we didn't like all our teachers or subjects, some of us may have failed Physics because we did our English homework sitting at the back of the room, but there were also subjects we enjoyed and did well in,teachers who we had affection and respect for, lifelong friendships made.

Life in 1971 was more predictable, slower-paced and school leavers could be offered several jobs to choose from. Fast forward to 2017. Can someone really make money out of sharing their life on Instagram or You Tube?  Can a 17 year old design an app in his bedroom and sell it for several million dollars? Can a few friends get together with an idea and start a company before they leave school?

Yes, all this is possible in 2017 - but what what can we teach our students that will also help them to be successful in life if being a You Tube celebrity is not for them. Do we go back to the
key competencies
thinking,  using language, symbols, and text, managing self, relating to others, participating and contributing.
Although we didn't have the key competencies in 1967 perhaps what we learnt could fit under those headings.

So, what would we like our students to say about their teachers, their school, their education when they leave and meet up for their school reunion?  

Cross-posted from HERE

What will Harry's school be like in 2020?

For me, MLP/ILE/OTJ/BYOD and other acronyms just got personal!  My grandson Harry will be starting school in 2019, that's only 4 years away and I'm starting to think about what his school will look like. I imagine it might be something like the new primary school just down the road from Harry’s house which has been built on Modern Learning principles. I've been to visit the school twice and I've loved it both times. In fact I should probably email the principal and say I was considering enrolling my grandson there! So what did I like about the school, what was it that made me think, “I would love Harry to be at this type of school”

Well, it was lots of things really. It was the modern design, happy, engaged students, interesting and useful spaces, the nature and purpose of furniture, it was the great feeling I got from the school environment, the library with doors that opened to the playground, cool places to sit and read, the drama room and multipurpose space for PE/concerts and the school production. Enthusiastic teachers who work and plan collaboratively, students whose learning was self-directed learning... When I talked to children and said “tell me what you doing” they had no hesitation in telling me about their learning, what they were learning, why they were learning it and how they were showing what they had learnt. There was a real buzz in the school, and in some classes that “hum” of engaged students, focused on something interesting to them.

Now to be honest when my own children were at primary school, I didn't really think about modern learning environments or modern learning pedagogy. 25 years ago when Harry's dad started Primary school, school was pretty much the same as when I had been at school. My children walked, and then later scootered to school, they were in the choir, the rugby team, the netball team, the cricket team and the school production. They brought home their classwork in books and I remember the little spelling notebook, which for one of my children became his biggest challenge. We made posters for projects which went off to school rolled up, never to be seen again. And don’t start me on the worksheets!!  We had the school journals and other books to read, current events, times tables lists, endless school trips, fundraising, the school fair, family pizza nights...

We had a 10 minute interview with the teacher after the report and if I was lucky enough to be mother help or my children forgot their lunch, I would pop into school. However, we just trusted that what was happening at the school, was what should be happening at the school. The primary school was the local school, it was two blocks away, people in the area felt/said it was a good school with competent teachers and we lived in a leafy middle class suburb. The school had a good ERO report so we felt quite comfortable that our children would be getting a good education.

So what kind of school would I like Harry to go to? 

I’ve also been to visit another school that isn't  purpose-built with beautiful modern learning environments. It’s a school that although it is going to be rebuilt, has really re-invented itself and tried to implement a climate of change in the teaching and learning. By re-purposing and ‘hacking” the existing school hall they have created new spaces for three classes. In the Senior school, classrooms have been changed around to allow for a different kind of learning in different spaces.

Self -directed learning, collaboration, agency, communication, personalised learning, connectedness are all elements  associated with Modern Learning Pedagogy and 21st Century Education. Last year at the Edutech Conference I was fortunate to hear Sir Ken Robinson speak about creativity and Sugata Mitra talk about his experiment with computers in a hole in the wall. 
This year at the same conference I heard Eric Mazur share his ideas about changing assessment in his University Physics classes and Eric Sheninger talk about how he transformed his school. Larry Rosenstock shared how students at HighTech High created authentic projects which were shared with family and friends, they created an online portfolio documenting their learning and completed internships in areas of interest. Yesterday at ULearn15, I heard Grant Lichtman talk about his "Ed journey" where he visited over 60 schools to look at innovation. There is no doubt that education for Harry will be vastly different to his dad’s.

As for me, I can’t wait to view the live blog of the school trip, read Harry’s latest story online

and see what questions he is asking on the live Twitter feed from his class.

Starting school November 2019 - Bring it on!

Three Inspirations

Only three inspirations?
This was a hard task to narrow down the three people /events/ groups  that have influenced me as a teacher, learner and educator.

1) Ewan McIntosh - I first met Ewan McIntosh when he came to my school about five, possibly six years ago.  He spent the day talking to various groups about using technology for learning. In the session with the English department he showed us a video game and talked passionately about how it could be used as a starter for creative writing. I was hooked! No-one else seemed to be, but I think that was the first time I understood the power of being connected. Here was this educator, from Scotland, in far away Christchurch, sharing ideas about teaching and learning.

2) eFellowship et al - the journey, the growing, the people. Being an eFellow  in 2013has changed how I think about teaching, learning, and being connected. Michael Winter says "the eFellows is a life sentence (but in  a good way). I have learnt so much from all the amazing people connected with
the eFellowship.

3)Educamps are a fantastic way to share, learn and connect with other like-minded EE's (eLearning enthusiasts). I have attended and/or facilitated eight educamps with another one happening on November 22nd here in Christchurch. I have met so many incredible teachers at educamps who have inspired, motivated and befriended me. And what happens at educamp stays on the shared google doc
or is tweeted out so everyone can be connected with the learning and sharing that is happening.

This #chched blog project has been incredible and has exceeded any idea we had about what people might share. I have been in awe of the teachers who have taken the time to write blogposts and share what they are doing and to give us all a little peek into your classes, thank you all.

Pauline

Blogs - my tool of choice

I am a self-confessed "eteacher". I tweet, blog, curate, clip, pin, pad(let), Google, research, wiki, QR code, filter, share, collaborate, comment, read, reflect, teach, learn...  However, on reflecting I have come to realise that I am a bit of a "blog addict". Not sure if that is a category, but you may recognise some similar traits. Of course I love Twitter - and my PLN, but I think they are different tools for different jobs.

I love blogs!  Writing and curating content for my own, following links to others from Twitter, reading blogs from educators I know and respect, reading blogs from educators I respect but only know from Twitter and they don't know me , but what the heck - it's Twitter, everyone is a friend! I also have my favourite "techie" blogs, the ones that keep me up to date with new ideas and new tools, searching, sifting and curating the web so I don't have to.

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/

http://www.teachthought.com/

So, why do I think blogs are so powerful?

I think that blogs as a platform can serve many different purposes, for me they are more flexible and easier to use than Wikis (again I have several of those!) but it is the power of publication that makes them such a powerful tool for learners. The other aspect that links to publication is the reflection on a written piece of work. If a student hands in a piece of writing to their teacher, no matter what the standard, the only people who see it are the student and teacher. If it is a fabulous piece of writing, then hopefully it will get home to be shared with parents but probably it is destined for the desk, locker or even rubbish bin. This is where class blogs are fantastic. Writing, photos, videos, events, wonderings, learning etc is shared with the class and family. Students learn to reflect, comment and support others in their learning. The writing process of drafting/ editing/feedback/publishing works well. There are some very good ideas in this blog post from te@chthought about using technology to teach writing.

So how have I used blogs?

Last year I set up a Year 9 class blog inspired by many teachers including @annekenn, @MsBeez, @krivett @kiwiallana @Jackbillie35 and many more. The class blog Ti Kouka-Directions for Learning was a reasonable success. 

We just got started, we didn't wait to get it perfect. After everyone had posted on the blog and we had 1000 page views, we celebrated with cake (idea from Allana). Next time I create a junior blog, I would use it as part of the formative writing process which would fit in nicely in a year 9 or 10 programme.I know that for many primary schools, class blogs are used extensively, but are not as popular at secondary. I would love to hear from other teachers who are using class blogs at this level.

The other blog I started last year was called The Shed - a blog for blokes.

I started this because I had a lot of boys in my junior classes who were reluctant readers, reluctant writers and reluctant learners. The idea was to find interesting blokey stuff that we could share with the class and then use as starters to write about. We would find You Tube clips, Ted talks, dog stories, car stories, anything that would catch our attention. Not all of this went on the blog as some of the TED talks were too long, but it was great to expose them to lots of different ideas. The story about the Cyborg emphasised the potential impact of 3D printing. This was one of our favourites and highlighted the way technology is changing our world.

One of the challenges at secondary school is working out how to add something new on top of a busy curriculum and NCEA assessment. This is often the reason we don’t try to make even a small change in our practice. Teachers will say if it is not going to save me time then I’m not going to try it, or how do I know this will work or be better than what I am doing now. Do we need to move on from this kind of thinking?

This year I have also started a blog for staff here at my school(idea from @Aimiesibson) adding posts about interesting techie tools, advertising eCafe on Fridays, workshops and sharing articles and my own PD. This has been a low-key way to share elearning ideas and tools with the odd quiz  thrown in to make it interesting and a  chocolate fish as a reward. I have also continued to post on my own teaching and learning blog, with the posts able to be used as evidence for registered teacher criteria , linked to my appraisal portfolio.

I will finish with quotes from two educators I have been inspired by: Kevin Honeycutt @kevinhoneycutt who said"Don't wait to get it right,just start doing it"  or something similar. And Ewan McIntosh @ewanmcintosh whose image (below) appeared on the Twitter feed for Edutech14.

If you haven't started a personal blog then I encourage you to try starting one, or even just start a Google Doc and record your thoughts each day. And if you don't know what to write, here are some starters for blogging from the team at Te@chThought, courtesy of Justine Hughes @cossie29

And if you want to start a class blog, four resources below.

Bling4yrblog   Allanah King @AllanahK
Ako: Teacher Learnng    Allana Taylor   @kiwiallana

Langwitches Blog  and some ideas for a blogging framework
Connected Educator Starter Kete