This morning was an eye-opener, as a student panel let us in on their private world. I will pull all the statements from the conference back channel later and upload them on this site. I was going to provide a summary here but what was said needs to be seen in all its glory.
Author Archives: pellis
iPad heaven
oh my! I’m very grateful to the college for allowing me the use of an iPad in the last couple of terms. It has become an indispensable personal tool.
Truth told I’ve not done very well at integrating it int the classroom. This session I just did has shown me what I ( and therefore my students) have missed out on.
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
huge amount of teacher conversation following the student panel discussion. It was both inspiring and chastening. I’ll blog more later as I should now be involved in learning. I’m distracted in class. Ironic much!!
Conference Day 2
hugely disappointing opening keynote from James Dalziel of Macquarie Uni on sharing elearning ideas. The content itself is valid and certainly from it I will remember the thought that if we wait until the tension between school operating networks and the latest innovations in education dies down, we will be waiting forever. However it was basically a long winded Uni lecture backed up with basic black and White PowerPoint. This from an internationally recognised innovator in eLearning.
Today I will do a workshop on GarageBand and Sibelius 7(both tools operated by our own music department), I’ll also take part in hands on sessions about iPads and iPods. I’m most looking forward to a student panel working with a roomful of educators to enlighten us as to what they feel is best practice. I can’t wait.
As a side thought – I’m here on a conference to look at innovative learning. On the way into the lecture theatre I passed three classrooms. Each one had boys sitting silently behind a desk typing notes onto a laptop. The teacher a the front was writing on a whiteboard with his back to the class whilst talking. I realise this was just a tiny snapshot of classroom practice but it certainly gave me something to think about.
AIS ICT integration conference @ Knox Grammar
I’m here for two days. Thea and I flew the flag this morning by presenting a session on the use of ICT in student feedback. Comments can be read on our dedicated hashtag #fdbk
The conference itself is currently trending on #aisitic11
QLD sign off
This is my sign off from Queensland – we’re on the last flight out tonight and I think my mind will be racing on the plane. It’s been an amazing three days and I’m taking away only positives. I do believe there are things we need to examine about how we do it at Joeys, and there are undoubtedly things I will need to reflect on about my own teaching. My goodness what an amazing profession we all share – and what amazing times we live in. Has there ever been a time when the blistering pace of technological change has ever posed such a challenge for education professionals? I’m looking forward to all this information I’ve soaked up gradually trickling through the synaptic connections I’ve managed to retain and I really hope it helps me to be an agent of change in this job which, I’ve been wonderfully reminded, I actually love. Thanks for the opportunity to do this 🙂
Can we have the students microchipped?
There is too much data at the moment for teachers to utilize brainmapping effectively but brain mapping has proved that the moment a student sits down and is forced to listen to teachers talking they cease higher powered thinking. As soon as they are engaged the brain lights up. So we all need to talk less.
They are beginning to develop ways of brain mapping to track effective learning, and even realtime feedback in the classroom. The future is here.
In early years children develop an astonishing range of synaptic connections. These are solidified or weakened throughout the years that we get them at Joeys, and then they begin to shed them in their millions into early adulthood. This is the scientific proof that we need to make us look at what their primary schools are doing with them. I will say that I am seeing evidence that primary and junior schools are rorting Naplan (and we know why they do it) and sometimes what we think we know about the skills of our incoming students turns out to be inaccurate.
Brainmapping
Decided to give myself one way out there session and I’m watching Dr. Jason Zagami present on brainmapping. This guy is an outstanding presenter on revolutionary technologies.
New ideas for all
A NZ school here runs a programme where new teachers to the school have a .8 load in their first year and a .9 load in their second year and in the slack they are expected to visit other classrooms, observe, learn, offer advice and help where needed. It apparently is hugely popular with everyone. All teachers are also expected to maintain a digital portfolio of their ongoing professional development.
On ICT issues it is becoming a real pain switching between windows and mac. If you took my windows 7 away I’d be fine with it.