After a couple of days to reflect on my experience in sunny Queensland I now know that many of the things we complain about are NOT THAT BAD….. BUT….. I am ready to (hopefully) help to take Joeys into not only the future of education but the future of life. I know many don’t want to see that it is so but technology is here to stay and skills required by our students will be greatly varied from when many of us were at school. Yes, some things must still be valued, handwriting will always be essential BUT typing skills and the like will also be equally valued. Unfortunately I am not going to let go of the preverbial bone and keep screaming that WE NEED UPDATED TECHNOLOGY (especially in science). You can’t expect us to be future teachers without the means to do so. It’s a fact. Thank you again for the opportunity to see how others ‘live’, there is so much now to do and I am ready to do it 🙂

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 🙂

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.

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.

So many great ideas coming out of the conference. All the research says that if we can just collaborate we will not only encourage deeper learning in the subject matter but get deeper understanding. Collaboration also means that the workload is shared.  A great product called ATLAS will take all our programs and find the overlap to pave the way for teachers and students to collaborate in learning. Will need to continue investigating this possibility.

You mentioned Digital Portfolios – we should be doing this as part of our own learning. I have done one in the past and found that it was a great experience putting it together and I learnt a lot about myself as an educator while I was developing it. Funnily enough there has been some discussions about teacher reviews from time to time and yet it is not seen that Professional Portfolios can be an essential and very beneficial part of it all .  It can be reflective, affirming and challenging but what real growth isn’t?

Finally Sport and other activities. Like you Cas I admire the sporting achievements – I have been brought to tears at many assemblies when we celebrate the achievements of these fine young men, but what about robotics clubs, science clubs, book clubs ( which there are a few) ,  get the kids writing APPS, creating a Virtual Tour of the school..what missed opportunities!! Sport is essential, a joyous part of  the community building process and such a wonderful way for the boys and teachers to bond – so not at all suggesting we do away with it…but it makes you think…

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.

I have just compared timetables with teachers from seven other schools. I will complain about many things from this point onwards but I wouldn’t swap my timetable for anything. Thanks Joeys

p.s I do love sport and I love that aspect of our College but I am just putting it out there that there are other equally important aspects that are behind because of sport…. science club is just one that springs to mind…. I think I am just overwelmed by the fantastic nature of education when there is more freedom of time….