Well, maybe one of the things that emerges from this interesting conversation with gurus John Hattie and Pasi Sahlbert, that a colleague put me on to, is that perhaps we are being overly critical and pessimistic about what were doing in Australia. Maybe because pessimism and cynicism can serve a political agenda better than acknowledgement of successes?
Sahlberg talks about teacher quality, equity, funding and a range of other issues in a really reasonable way. I respect the work that Hattie’s done, but do you sense here that he’s talking down our system, and emphasizing his own agenda rather than listening to what he’s being told? He’s being told that Finland values teachers, respects teachers and pays them well, values teacher autonomy, doesn’t over-emphasise teaching … his action plan for Australia … well, it doesn’t really reflect that.
I’ve embedded the Apple announcement on text books below. I’ve already heard some negative reactions in the twittiverse arguing that this is another examples of Apple’s ‘walled garden’ approach, and that locking schools and districts into Apple systems entirely is not a good move. It seems there’s other questions too about whether these textbooks will be available on other platforms (unlikely) or available in other formats (very unlikely).
Nevertheless, I’m quite excited about it, particularly from a writer’s perspective. Could I write my textbook and have it on the Apple bookstore without the intermediary of the publisher? Like musicians do now? Could we break down the systems and empower good teachers and good teacher/authors and share their expertise more widely? And I’m definitely going to download the publication software.
But I have reservations, and they are more around the idea of the textbook in the first place. Maybe the textbook thing is bigger in the United States than here, or maybe because I’m an English teacher there isn’t generally the reliance on a textbook beyond the set novels and plays.
The video says they are going to change ‘one of the cornerstones of education: the textbook’. But is the textbook really that critical? How does this change learning? Or teaching? And, will replacing the traditional textbook with a ‘bells and whistles’ version change the classroom experience? Where are the collaborative tools, the feedback, the personalisation, the differentiation, the user-created textbook that we’ve talked about for some time.
There’s no doubt it will look pretty, it will save a lot of printing and heavy schoolbags for kids with iPads (oh yeah, how many is that right now?), they can be updated easily and they will be more engaging. But every time I hear ‘engagement’ as an argument for new software and hardware I cringe a little. There’s got to be better reasons than that. We shall see!
Video promoting the NSW component of the ‘Digital Revolution’, the 1-1 notebook (or netbook) program. NSW, which originally seemed unenthusiastic about the Federal Government’s plans to give each student a computer (where’s the infrastructure) seems committed now. Scott McLeod calls it a great idea in his recent blog post, and it’s hard to argue with putting powerful tools in the hands of our students.
Thought I’d have a go at Animto, a site that was mentioned today. Here’s what it did with the images. Well, it didn’t do anything first up, I think because WordPress doesn’t like Flash. But it does have an “export to YouTube” function, so here it is.
Got my hands on very interesting little gadget this week; the FLIP video camera. Not available in Australia yet (thanks Teresa for organising a USA pick-up) except on e-bay (which I’m never going to use again after their recent paypal fervour) this little gadget is about the size of pack of cigarettes (remember them?), runs on A4 batteries, takes an hour of pretty good quality video, costs about $150US and is ridiculously easy to use. No more brackets I promise!
When I say ‘pretty good’ I wouldn’t want to put it on a wide-screen HD TV but it’s more than acceptable for web use or viewing on your computer. And no cords or cables!; the USB thing just ‘flips’ out and it plugs into your USB port, with software built into the camera.
I can see heaps of opportunities for classroom use of this tool. Group work, oral presentations and no big and bulky video camera sitting in the corner dominating the room. You could shoot short plays or ‘news’ for students and of course students could use it themselves to make video presentations for each other or the class, all of which are editable in programs like Movie Maker of Studio.
There’s plenty of examples of the video that comes out of this camera on the web. There’s a CNET review HERE and below is a 10 minute YouTube review of the FLIP from GeekGirlTV:
I was pointed to an interesting post this week, an interview with award winning primary school teacher, Tim Thompson, on how he uses technology such as podcasts, blogs and video in his classroom. I liked the following observation particularly; a key thing for teachers I think, is to continue to play with these technologies. And that’s my excuse
Thompson says:
I’ve found that the most beneficial strategy in finding and choosing new classroom technological initiatives is to try them myself. Whenever the opportunity arises I sit in on our school district’s technology seminars and classes. Without fail I always hear of something new to try. After I first give it a try I am much more apt to give it a go with my own students. As educators, we ourselves never want to lose that sense of wonder. When we are open to new ideas and processes our students will be too.
You can read the full inerview on OpenEducation here
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