On Holidays ….. July 12, 2011
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Ok, although many of my friends think that attending an ISTE conference as a Board Director is a holiday (it certainly is not!) I am now on what I consider to be a well earned break.
At the end of the study tour, I had an extra night in New York, as you do, flew to London, met up with Robyn and the 15 year old daughter, Kate, had 24 hours there, took the train to Gatwick, an Air Portugal (TAP) flight to Porto (which wasn’t too bad at all!), a train for the airport into Porto, another train to Braga, in the North, up a Hill to the most fantastic hotel, fixed the hotel wireless internet for them, stopped, and caught up with all the news.
Ok slow down, more detail. I spent the afternoon of the 30th of June and the morning of the 1st of July (Happy Birthday Tess) in New York, more precisely 42nd and Park Avenue, or there abouts. I had dinner with Gary Stager, Sylvia Martinez and the crew walked home and was up early. I love New York. The following morning I walked down to the New York Public Library and what a buzz that is. I was there for the “celebrating 100 years” exhibition. I saw Sumerian Cuneiform tablets from 2300BC or before, Thomas Jefferson’s hand written draft of the Document of Independence to the original score of the Star Spangled Banner. And much more .. not to mention sitting in the Reading room and reading some poetry! (as you do!)
The trip across the pond from New York was uneventful, until Heathrow, where the queues were 2 hours long to enter the country; I agree with security upgrades, but if these guys are going to host an Olympics one would think they would have more than 4 immigration officers rostered on! Especially when there are more than 24 possible queues! Anyway …….
Finally caught up with the family and did the obligatory bus tour of London’s sites and a pub for dinner, and yes there was Guinness on tap.
A short sleep, across to Victoria Station, the express to Gatwick (which is excellent), no issues with queues and a two hour flight to Porto in Portugal, a train transfer and then another train, stopping all stations to Braga, a Northern Portuguese town of 120,000 people, where we stayed for five nights and had a fantastic time. Coffee, red wine and excellent food at reasonable prices. We stayed on top of a mountain overlooking the city at a hotel call Do Elevador, which was 100 meters from this sanctuary, remembering that Portugal is a very Christian Country.
From there, a night in Porto, to make sure, we were on time for the next flight, Porto to Orly Paris, then a taxi to Gare de Lyon, and a high speed train to Dijon in Burgundy and a local train to Beaune.
ISTE 2011 – The Conference July 2, 2011
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ISTE was different for me this year as I found myself, as a newly elected Board member, not having the free time I have been used to in the past. I arrived in Philadelphia late on the Wednesday before the conference, having meetings to attend on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Thursday was the ‘new’ board members orientation followed by the start of the Board meeting. This meeting continued all day on the Friday, not finishing to late. Saturday was the affiliates’ meeting (my favourite part of ISTE) and the conference started lunch time on the Sunday and continued to mid afternoon on the Wednesday. The study tour had dinner that night (they gave me a baseball glove and baseball, which are going straight to the pool room) and then went back to the hotel to pack for the next day when we headed back to New York and went our own ways!
More to come ………
Hard work and good fun …. study tour June 30, 2011
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I am in the middle of having a really (really) good time. I left Australia on the 15th of June with 26 other Australians on a study tour to the US, which I had planned. San Francisco, New York, Washington and Philadelphia.
Well, we all met in Sydney, and despite the Chilean ash cloud threatening to delay us, we managed to leave on time with little hassle. Our first port of call was San Francisco (via LA, thanks to QANTAS for not having direct flights to San Fran any more, another reason to move airlines)
We visited Apple, the Computer History Museum and Google on the first day in San Fran. Busy as, but fantastic. The presentation at Apple was hands on, so we all had an ipad, fantastic! Steve Doyle did a fantastic job, looking after us. The computer History museum was fascinating and well worth the stop and Google was Google. The Googleplex is a place to visit to experience a very different work culture. We continued with a meal at the Franciscan Crab restaurant, which overlooks Alcatraz Island. The following day we visited Oracle, Intel and the Urban School of San Francisco. All based around a variety of learning pedagogies. That evening had dinner with Ralph Leonard at the House of Nanking restaurant.
From San Francisco we were back on the plane and west to east to arrive in New York and went to Caroline’s, a comedy club (a good laugh!). A free day, walked the Brooklyn bridge, visited Ground Zero, spent some time in the subway, checked out the places we were visiting the following day, which was a good plan as took the wrong train first off.
The next day was then easy, as we had the subway to Queens, Public School 234 where we were given free run to visit classrooms. Many thanks to the principal, Thea Pallos, and the team from Promethean, the two Lori’s. They were fantastic. We then went across to MaryMount school on the upper East side in Manhattan, a ipad school. The presentation was challenging and thought provoking. Again a thanks to Steve Doyle for his support.
After this a walk through Central park, back for a shower and off to Patsy’s for dinner and a dinner speaker, Gary Stager. Gary has been a great supporter of ACCE over the years and has done a great deal of educational work in Australia. He is to be congratulated on his contribution. He didn’t let us down, his talk was “as always” challenging, stimulating and a ‘little’ controversial.
Much has been happening ….. April 16, 2011
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I have been seriously slack with my blog, it is months since I have said anything but really that’s what its about, isnt it? You dont need to say something for the sake of saying something. (I’ve been guilty of that!)
Ok, The Australian Council for Computers in Education (ACCE) has released a Position Paper on ICT and the Australian Curriculum. Please check it out! We have also release our response to the Federal governments Joint Standing Committee on Cyber Safety. Please read the paper! The Philadelphia study tour to this year’s ISTE conference is nearly organised, I am up to dotting the i’s (etc)
The big news though, is we are doing another tour, this time, a study program to Arizona, check it out!
In my other world, teacher registration and regulation, the National Standards for Teachers is big news.
I have been reading “from Fear to Facebook” ( Matt Levinson) and Playing Games in Schools” (Atsusi “2c” Hirumi) both easy to read and very informative. The blog I seem to spending most time at the moment is Greg Whitby’s bluyonder and if not that then Julie Lindsay’s E-Learning Journeys
Learning … November 9, 2010
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Say no more!
The nature of Learning: Using Research to inspire Practice. The executive summary for this OECD research can be found here.
Summary is as follows:
Learner-centred: the environment needs to be highly focused on learning as the principal activity, not as an alternative to the critical role of teachers and learning professionals but dependent on them.
• Structured and well-designed: to be “learner-centred” requires careful design and high levels of professionalism. This still leaves ample room for inquiry and autonomous learning. (more…)
Digital content – icing on the cake! November 7, 2010
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I have just finished crossing the t’s and doting the i’s on my digital content presentation for ictQATAR, here in Doha tomorrow. I am pleased with what I have written, and hopefully it will be beneficial for the ‘think tank’ audience who are coming to hear five internationally invited guests discuss the topic. I have included (more…)
ACCE2011 Study Tour October 3, 2010
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While ACCE develops its new website, I have copied the advertising material below. ACCE has had a number of expressions of interest already! I think New York, Washington and Philadelphia may be fairly attractive destinations! (more…)
AITSL Key Stakeholder Forum June 21, 2010
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Today I attend the AITSL Key Stakeholder Forum in my role as president of ACCE. Here are my notes (plagiarised from the PP presentation) without comments. I wrote these to develop my own knowledge of AITSL. There was a really great diagram about the new national education architecture that I will scan and include at a later date. (more…)
What is leadership? June 15, 2010
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In a week or so I am off to join a study tour to Silicon valley and then across to Denver for ISTE’s conference. I am doing a short invited presentation on leadership in Teacher Associations, so that has been occupying my thinking as I go about my daily routines. If I am true to form I will prepare my presentation on the plane on the way over. (more…)
ICT national policy and professional learning. November 15, 2011
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In recent months, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in our Australian curriculum has been debated at length – arguments have been promulgated about the place ICT should have in a national curriculum, what it should look like and how it should be implemented. These arguments emerge from a variety of perspectives, but for me, if we accept that the debate is about promoting student learning, then there needs to be a synergy between student learning and teacher professional learning.
Professional learning occurs in multiple ways. In our field of Information Technology the goal posts move rapidly with innovative professional development activities offered by a variety of providers as new mobile devices are released, as new technology becomes available or even as a new operating systems are released.
The purpose of this reflection is to explore one essential and valid focus for teacher professional learning – our national agenda – and to suggest that we need to focus less on the latest fad and technological release and more on our national education goals for schooling.
So do we know the educational goals related to ICT and the national agenda?
We need to consider three significant documents which are relevant to Australian education: 1) the Melbourne Declaration on schooling and how it grounds ICT in the curriculum; 2) the work by the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (ACARA) on the Australian Curriculum, specifically on general capabilities, and 3) the work of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) linked to the national professional standards for teachers and principals.
The Melbourne Declaration (2008) states that our students be … successful learners in literacy and numeracy and [be] creative and productive users of technology, especially ICT, as a foundation for success in all learning areas … (p. 8). This clearly suggests the integration of ICT into all subject areas and implies that teachers need to integrate ICT into their teaching, across the curriculum.
ACARA documentation emphasises ICT competency as a general capability to be embedded within all subjects. ACARA justifies this perspective by suggesting that … ICT permeates every area of our society and lives. Students need to be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to use ICT to support contemporary learning and living. ICT affords the opportunities to personalize learning and to learn both within and out of school… (2011, retrieved November 14th 2011). ACARA is yet to comment on ICT as a discipline/subject area.
AITSL has included ICT into many of the focus areas/annotated illustrations for the new Professional Standards for Teachers, providing concepts, ideas and research on how teachers can use ICT to meet the standards at all four levels (Graduate, Proficient, Accomplished and Lead).
Understanding national policy and its implications for teachers is critical. I hope that as we deliberate about what constitutes quality teacher professional development, we consider more than the latest releases and fads. We need to understand national goals, especially the embedding of ICT in all disciplines, and support teacher professional learning that focuses on this.
http://www.mceetya.edu.au/mceecdya/melbourne_declaration,25979.html
http://www.teacherstandards.aitsl.edu.au/
http://www.teacherstandards.aitsl.edu.au/