Yesterday I was at a conference and something rather unprofessional and disturbing occurred.

Something that hadn’t to be honest happened for a very long time I think possibly since primary school.  I was standing outside and was approached and pretty much abused.  This person was not a conference participant and had never met me or had a conversation with me in person.

They felt (Like we all do sometimes) the need to have their say on a situation where mistakes were made and decided to stop their job, life and focus to come and bully me.  It reminded me of that time in school where something bad had happened and all you wanted to do was run and hide.

However I was no longer at school, I was in the real world and I had to run a presentation.  I could not run and hide.  I had to move forward use my teflon superwoman coating and get out to my presentation.  It wasn’t easy but I did it.  It made me think about how we build this “Teflon coating” into our students and into our staff.

How do we work with learners not sweat the small stuff ? Therefore focusing on the big stuff which is learning.

I have been thinking about this and decided that it comes down to having a good sense of self.  There lies the hard part, how to you teach learners to develop a good sense of self?  As a blogger I have asked myself this question several times.  Who am I as a blogger?  For a while a year ago I stopped blogging because I felt that my ideas were not worth contributing because everyone else sounded so clever.

Then I turned the tables and started to blog for myself and not for others.

I blog because it helps me develop this sense of self as a writer but also as a person.

Blogging helps build up my Teflon coating.

How?  Because not everyone always agrees with you and your blog and it is a good testing ground for this Teflon coating. Blogging was one of the things that allowed me yesterday to not run and hide but be a little annoyed, have a vent today and move forward because I understood that this person did not know me and therefore their comments were not only ill informed but irrelevant.

I am not promoting blogging as an answer to our resilience problems in schools but I think that exposing teachers and students to a wider audience than their grade has great benefits for their resilience and Teflon coatings.  Teaching students to be reflective writers and reflectors to me is as important as teaching reading.

I would love your thoughts

One thing I miss most of all is those moments in teaching when you see students get feedback take action and learn.  Those “ah ha” moments where all the crap that sometimes happens in schools becomes irrelevant because you know that you have assisted in making a difference.

My wonderful principal at Caroline Springs Bente Stock called them “Goosebump Moments” Those moments where teaching and learning give you goosebumps.  Spurred on by Dean Shareski’s post yesterday I began to keep my eyes peeled for moments in my new job where beauty and goosebump moments may occur.  Well I looked and looked at work and didn’t find much love there except some new geek tools to play with.

Then I came home and checked my email and had a message from a student at Parramatta Marist thanking me for some writing and goal setting tips on his greenup project which is a project focussed around “What can you do to help Westmead become more environmentally aware?” .

The message was nothing huge just a small thank you.

It was not the thank you which gave me goosebumps but the change in his writing over such a short period of time.

This student took my advice (a total stranger albiet vetted by Dean Groom) reflected on his practice and made amazing improvements overnight.   His writing was visibly of a higher standard and his reflections were clearer.  What surprised me was that this was all done via web 2.0 and through the connections and feedback circles that ning can provide.

The students in this project are gaining feedback and improving not just within the walls of their school but beyond their school.  It does not matter that I am not teaching there during the day as these students are grasping the concept of a flat classroom and the art of giving and recieving feedback.

I will go as far to say that for a large proportion of these students their working definition of a PLN would put a few teachers to shame.  I am guilty of it myself, sometimes when you get a comment which challenges your rhetoric it is tempting to not publish it or to defend yourself.  It takes a lot of guts and determination to take on the feedback and even more determination to act on and improve as a result of this.

Lucy and Dean congratulations on firstly allowing us into your classroom walls to give feedback and on a personal note thanks for giving me a “goosebump moment” where I remembered once again why I love education and why students are always at the centre of my moral compass. I look forward to contributing more to your nings and collaborative projects and hope you both continue working beyond your school.

This week I found a new buzzword that makes me wonder about where we are heading with education.  I saw the term “Teacher 2.0″ A quick google search will show you that adding 2.0 to the end of things is quickly becoming the new black in education fashion.

Where is the world going?

Does this mean we now have a student 2.0?

What happens when the 2.1 upgrade patch is released?

Once again a buzzword has entered the educational building and is beginning to enter the minds of our educational leaders and I am scared.  I am scared because once again people seem to be missing the point of education and student/teacher relationships.  It is not about upgrades it is about connections and learning.

Good teachers have and always will use whatever tools are at their disposal and work with students to achieve amazing learning.  This hasn’t changed with the advent of web 2.0 tools and professing that we need to upgrade our teachers to 2.0 is making a mockery of why I became a teacher.  I became a teacher to improve student lives and to work towards the collaboration and development of shared knowledge.  I utilise technology because it is in the needs of my students because it is the 21st century and not using current tools is not appropriate.

Good teachers will utilise technology because that is what tools are available currently to improve student learning.  ICT is the environment for learning currently and good teachers, regardless of what version they are recognise this.

I also looked back in history on quotes about teaching because I was interested in seeing if the thinking around powerful teaching had changed. I found the following:

To teach is to learn twice.  ~Joseph Joubert, Pensées, 1842

A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.  ~Horace Mann

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.  ~Edward Bulwer-Lytton

A teacher’s purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.  ~Author Unknown

The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher inspires.  ~William Arthur Ward

I also asked some people in my personal learning network what teaching is? I didn’t ask what teacher2.0 was, just what is a teacher ? Here were their responses:

Do you think that these skills are still needed with the advent of teacher 2.0 buzzword?

Yes of course because there is no such thing.

Good teachers seem to use whatever is available to them.  It doesn’t matter whether they have one computer or 100 they use anything and everything at their disposal.  Good teachers always listen and involve students not just in the reflection stage but in the planning, implementation, evaluation, reflection and action stage. Good teachers have their moral compass set to students.

This I don’t think has changed from 1.0 to 2.0.  I do think that again it is an example of buzzwords entering the educational vocab without any thinking as to the implications of what these terms may do to current teachers.

Teaching has never been a linear process it is a constant learning journey by giving the term 2.0 we are saying that it is better than 1.0 and that once you are at 2.0 you are somewhat improved.  I don’t think I would want this teacher in my school.

I would like a teacher which is constantly improving and always working with and for students using whatever is the best tool for the situation.  Buzzwords are allowing teachers to continue talk without taking action.  Dean Groom tonight put it perfectly when he said he wants ” staff to actually SUPPORT kids and not talk about SUPPORTING kids”

This has nothing to do with what version teacher you are, whether you are a so called digital immigrant or digital native (thats a whole other issue)

It also doesnt matter which school you are at, whether they are rich or poor, private or state, if students are at the centre and are in positions where decision making occurs then things change.

How many schools have students as key decision makers in schools?  That’s where the shift needs to occur, not with buzzwords like teacher 2.0.  I am getting more and more concerned with each day with the continuation of this tokenism in education where everything has a label and students are becoming another label in schools when they should be the reason!

Whilst it is true we live in a society which loves to label everything it would be nice to instead of creating new words we decide to broaden our current definitions.  If someone asked me tomorrow what was needed in a teacher 2.0?  I would have to respond with the same as teacher 0.0 and 1.0 which is:

A passion for learning and a passion for working, collaborating, creating, communicating and reflecting with students.

We ask students to reflect and write blogposts that are non education related all the time.  We ask them to have a go and writing their opinions on current events, I thought I would have a go at writing a non edtech one.  I collaborated this from a conversation I had with my sister who is my hero.  She is 24 with twin boys she is raising by herself.

When God was dividing up the rich from the poor he got his list confused with the good and the bad and so our society was made. No need to tell you who swapped with whom of course. I think the fact that Jessica Simpson earns more than her next door neighbour Brain Surgeon tells the story…

My thoughts have been sparked by Victoria Beckham, it was so hard to write that even when I was typing my keyboard was laughing at me. After watching a reality tv show featuring anecdotal highlights from Mrs. Beckham’s partially scripted life I couldn’t stop thinking about how the other half live….other half?

So you mean that when God was reading those lists I had a fifty-fifty chance and still lucked out???
Surely it couldn’t possibly be the other HALF?  Though based on the abundance of reality shows blatantly rubbing wealth and fame in our un-lifted faces, most of the world live jet-setting lifestyles except me and everybody I know and everybody they know.
Let it be said that the rich and famous make up a very small, almost disposable part of our society, yet we are bombarded with images and tv shows and articles and emails about the ‘other half’.

Why can’t we look away?
What is wrong with us?  Why are the biggest rating shows about lives most of us will never experience despite working like a dog for fifty years??
No wonder depression is the silent epidemic but I will have to talk to you about that in the ad break.

Also let it be said that if a show like The Simple Life…or the Beckhams do Beverley was to have been aired on TV fifty years ago my grandfather would have turned the tv off out of pride and self respect, two things that seem to have a pricetag…

$36.95 a month on a basic Foxtel package.

What I despise the most about our ‘glamorous and fabulous’ world is that we give these rich dimwits a platform to dribble not only to us but well within earshot of the next generation who god forbid will idolise these women like Paris Hilton, Victoria Beckham.

I don’t wanna get all ‘what about the children?’ on you but really what the hell is this message that we are allowing into our homes?

Yes you must take responsibility for that message. TV’s must have an off switch, the media must have a conscience…..my keyboard is laughing at me again.

So here is my plan………Next time I see Paris Hilton or Victoria Beckham or Nicole Richie getting their hair done, getting in or out of a car, getting drunk with a goat celebrating Christmas in May I am going to CHANGE THE CHANNEL.

I am sorry did you not understand??  It was hard for me at first too but i will say it again.

I am going to change the channel and that’s just the beginning…..

I might even turn the Idiot Box off….at the switch of course because saving the world is still in fashion.

I might even read a book.
I might even go for a walk, a walk to somewhere other than my car.
I might go and talk to my family members, I haven’t spoken to them since we got broadband in 1998, not that we aren’t close we facebook eachn other everyday my family makes me ROFL.

So to the rich and famous…I say shut up….
I would say more but I don’t have a producer, camera crew, a rich husband or a sex tape so no cares what I think….

(Thanks Krissy for this collaboration made me feel good !)

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/brentdanley/167805135/

I’m honored to be given this award by Loony Hiker from Successful teaching. Thank you so much Pat!  It is very nice to be noticed especially when I have been referred to on some blogs not even by my name LOL
The rules for this award are as follows:
(1) Put the logo on your blog

(2) Add a link to the person who awarded you

(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
(4) Add links to those blogs on yours
(5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

7 blogs that I find inspiring, motivating and thought provoking are the following:

Dean Grooms Effective Digital Classrooms

HeyJude

TechnoLOTE

Tom Barrett

Tony Searl

KerryJ

Middleclassgirl

At the time the issues were huge and I sweated and obsessed over the small stuff and it was all small stuff.

Then as life sometimes does it throws you a wake up call.  One of those moments when you realise that your problems and the people causing those problems are so insignificant that it is laughable.  For me this moment was the passing of my friend and colleague Bridgette Van Den Bogart.  I worked with Bridgitte at Caroline Springs College and she touched me more as a person than anyone I have ever met.  I felt I owed it to myself and to her to write a few memories about her as a teacher, friend and person.

When I first met Bridgette she had just gotten back from cancer treatment and was team teaching a grade six class.  Bridgettes tools in the classroom were not always technology but were always current events.  She modelled her feisty attitude and believed everyone could achieve.  I enjoyed listening to her life and her stories. she had been given so many knocks in her life much more than I care to note.  Despite everything seeming to constantly knock her down she was always optimistic.  She didnt need anyone to define her, Bridgette lived her life for her and for her children.
Then again in lifes turns she was diagnosed with further cancer and began chemo again.  Bridgette continued to work through the chemo and would be at work on a thursday after Wednesday night treatment.  She would be at work smiling through it all and showing us all that regardless of what was happening physically this never would beat her mentally and it didnt.  She continued to work as being a single mother with 3 kids she wanted to be able to provide for her lovely children.  During this time I had many a confronting conversation with Bridge about life and death and will never forget the honesty and lessons from her.  I learnt that from bridgette to live like there is no tomorrow and always look for the good in people but dont let that ever stop you from giving your opinion.  Bridge always stood up for what she believed it and at the funeral today many people spoke about her life as a feminist activist and a pacifist.

Then in January of this year she had some good news, she was told that she had longer to spend with the world than first thought and she was at work now working in literacy intervention and making us laugh on a daily basis with her upfront nature.  She always called a spade a spade and never worried about telling me when I was out of line !  (Thanks bridgette ! I do need it and not sure who will put me in my box now ?)

Then again life threw Bridgette another curveball with another bout of cancer.  This time the news was not as good but she was determined to live every minute to the fullest and spend as much time with her family and friends as possible.  This time however it beat her physically and we are all at a loss to explain how someone who loved life so much and packed so much into such a short time is gone.

Today I sat with students, family, collegues, loved ones to farwell Bridgette and I learnt more about this wonderful person who became a teacher in her 40’s taking her children to uni lectures determined to do something she believed in. Students today were impressed to here from others that she did not have a teacher persona she just had herself ! What a wonderful self it was.  Today we heard about her  life as a bus conductress in Sydney, to travelling around the world with no money, to striking for womens rights, to having her children, to running her own business to becoming a wonderful teacher.  Bridgette reinforced what I believe which is that we are a sum of our experiences and what an amazing woman through her experiences she was!

Again her success as a teacher wasn’t about blogs, wikis ed tech it was about students and sharing experiences.  The focus with Bridgette was always about the person never the tool !

Goodbye Bridgette thanks for teaching me to never define myself through someone else and to always fight for what I believe in and to always go back to what I am passionate about.  Thanks for also giving me perspective, you will never be forgotten as a friend or as a great teacher !

I will continue to to think of you and will never lose sight of what matters !

My philosophy of education will never be constant.  As I develop professionally and gain more experience with an from students, I will revise my philosophy to reflect my new educational insights.  These are my most current thoughts on my pedagogy.

I strongly believe teachers in schools should be accessible to all students.  There should be no bias as to race, gender or ability because all students can be challenged on their own level and experience success.  I aim to learn,teach and co-construct in a way which is exciting, understandable, challenging and accessible to all students.  Students together will take an active role in their learning by participating in group problem solving activities and open ended activities which challenge their previous ideas, instead of passively accepting whatever the teacher says to be true.  Students and teachers must be actively engaged in the classroom if they are to get the most out of their school years.  As a teacher it is my responsibility to encourage, work together and support teachers in their educational explorations.

Because I believe all students are individuals which have the right to learn, it is my duty to co-construct lessons which challenge students on their own level.  I am aware that I cannot and should not use the exact combination of lessons each year because my students will have different educational needs and desires.  By getting to know my students both academically and personally, I will be better prepared to meet their individual needs.  Even though this will be time consuming on my part, it is definitely worth it.  As a teacher I have the ability to spark new interests and unearth new potentials, and I do not take this opportunity lightly.  Students always will and have sparked new interests and potentials for me so why not work together? I will stay informed about current research and be willing to use creativity and flexibility to adapt to my students regardless of the current technology.

An atmosphere of trust and acceptance is essential to helping children reach their full potential.  Children should be encouraged to display their unique qualities; after all, this is what makes life interesting and helps students grow in intellectual and personal understanding.  Students can learn from each other more so than a textbook.  I will strive to develop a classroom where students fell comfortable expressing themselves and exploring the world around them by using positive feedback and not tolerating teasing or degradation of others.  I aim for this envrionment to be a question rich environment and a critical answer rich environment.

While shaping students academically, I also hope to touch students personal lives by modelling a positive attitude and kindness towards others.  Children come from such varied backgrounds, and unfortunately, some may not have had the experience of a supportive relationship.  I will use praise and encouragement to motivate my students to do their personal best in all that they do.  It is my hope that my caring, accepting disposition will influence children’s relations with others.

Along with encouraging children to be the best student and person they can possibly be, I believe assessment should be an opportunity to positively tell students what they have accomplished and what they are capable of doing whilst reflecting on the journey.  Assessment also informs my teaching and guides me in my direction thus allowing me to become a more informed educator.  Assessment to me is not about what a student can or cannot do. but instead, it should be an indication of where a student is headed and a time to praise their success and celebrate moments across time.
While I will continue to reassess my teaching style and beliefs as I gain professional experience, one thing will always remain constant - my students will always be my number one priority.  Their academic and personal growth will be my passions, and I will do everything in my power as an educator to help them experience educational success.

I hope you have enjoyed this very personal insight into my teaching and would love your thoughts on this.

Over the past few weeks I have been to some diverse schools.  I have been to many independent schools where money doesn’t seem to be an object and students are lucky enough to be engulfed with technology at every opportunity.

Today I visited Sunshine North Primary and ran a session on web2.0, IWBs and numeracy.  The discussions were amazing and they were all student centered which was fantastic.  Teachers here were very selective in their web 2.0 pickings as they had their own students in mind.  I loved hearing things in my session like “that could work with ………”

I think sometimes it is really easy to trial new technologies, new innovations amoungst students from white middle to upper class parents.  It is a whole other ball park to begin to a risk take with students already at risk !

The whole school was about doing the best for the students, they were not worried about self promotion or what the latest edtech revolution was.  They were focussed on what was the best for their students.  These kids didn’t have mobile phones to call a friend on, they didnt have ipods or anything like it.  Computers at home were limited and internet access was even more limited.  So how do we address this?

These students personal learning networks were limited and their access to others who spoke the same language sometimes was even limited.  The gap was not just about hardware but was about access to networks of other students who could assist them.  I am seeing more and more collaborative projects jumping on the horizon and I hope this will begin to redress some of this inequity.  However many of these projects are independant schools with other indenpendant schools and public schools with other public schools.  Reminds me of some countries where walls are built around slums to avoid catching a glimpse of something which might offend us.  I would love to see some examples of collaboration between schools where there is different socio economic status.  Summer Heights High earlier this year mocked this situation but seriously how often do things like that happen out of channel two sitcoms?

As teachers in the edtech community we seem to have moved beyond this, it no longer matters where you are from or how much you make.  We just want to work together, now its time to do this with kids.  It also doesnt have to always be global it could be the public or independant or catholic school up the road.  Like my previous post boxes then start to come down and connections can be made then there is a hope for students to be able to have a PLN where they are hearing thoughts from outside the box.

John Pearce spoke to me earlier about a wonderful idea where students with esl background contact their homeland and ask their questions in their own language.  At Sunshine North the divide in regards to technology and funding was there but the passion, the teachers and students was present in every way.

It all links back to the fact that schools are centres for communities to gather and the more ways teachers can build their social capital the better equipped they will be.

Congratulations to this school for taking risks pushing edtech with students where language, background and money is an issue but learning is never an issue !  Teachers were using the tools they had to improve learning and sometimes the tools dont have to be technology sometimes passion works just as well.

You seem to think that, through your “uniqueness”,
you are in some way superior just because you are different.  Here’s a
little secret, most often a need to be so “different” is just a
pitiful cry for attention to get noticed by anyone in any way.

I first had a little sook because hey I never professed to be unique, “I am unique, just like everybody else” but then I reflected on this writers motivation and then reflected on my life and where I am going and decided that this comment above really is not mean but a reflection of where we are in society.

In society we like boxes, we absolultely love them.  If we can label it and package it then it is fine and dandy.

When I went to school I was put into a box as a “Nerd” and sometimes eventhough I dread to remember as a “goth”

When I first went into work in local government we did Myers Briggs and I was given a box ENFJ.  I subscribe to some of it but does that box make me? No

When I started my current job I was HR profiled using DISC and came up a dominant influencer (LOL again not too far off centre)

These boxes in my life were given to me,I dont remember ever choosing them.  I have had all sorts of boxes throughout my life and I am sure people will continue to box and label me and others for some time to come.  Graham Wegner recently spoke about the boxes he is given by staff at his school and how he uses this as positive.  I have noticed recently the box of “edtech” has become popular and these boxes are getting together to find new ways of containing thoughts within the larger box.

I know labels and boxes are a part of life it allows people to define and grapple with things they do not understand..  People may not have experienced or encountered alcoholism, depression, homosexuality, or many other experiences but a label allows us to classify that information so we can make some sort of sense of the things we are scared of or know little about.   Boxes also keep us secure in the knowledge that we have an identity a place where we can build box communities with others.

So enough of my own reflection what about schools?

Surely as a leading edge environment in the 21st century the box walls are being broken down??

Students and teachers see each other as one? Because aren’t we all learners?

At the moment there are a few trail blazers out there trying to break down boxes create flat classrooms and begin to embrace differences whether they be nerds, colour, distance, size, race or language.  I heard someone say this week that “it is really hard to create something unique” Yes it is and it is when that uniqueness occurs that walls begin to break down and others then gain the empowerment to have a go at breaking down a box of their own or two. I want to name and acclaim a few of these trail blazers as they don’t seem to be out there blowing their own trumpets and anyone breaking down walls deserves a clap at some stage.  I know there is heaps more and I encourage you to comment and add more:

• Kim Cofino for working beyond the walls and seeking feedback and collaboration
• Sherryl Nussbaum Beach for reaching beyond her school, district, country about out to others on such a regular basis with every project she is part of.
• Judy O’Connell for understanding that libraries are not just book boxes
• Dean Groom for refusing to accept a deficit model in his staff and working outside the mould, and working outside of the box that is a school and is Australia.
• Chris Lehman for breaking boxes in schools from the top, this is hardly ever done !

SO what does this mean for  me?  It means that I will keep trying to unbox my thoughts and continue to talk to as many people as possible and really make an effort to make my own decisions before getting out my labelmaker.  It means that when I work with students I will try and model the same “box cutting” attitude.  It means that when I am put back in my box I will jump up and have another go!

I would love others to tell me about their experience of boxing and labelling and the affect it has had on them or their schools.  I am sure you were or know a student who didn’t fit the mould and sat in that box all by themselves.  I am also sure there are a few of you out there that have helped students break free of labels and move towards indivuduality.

I would also love to hear from people who have thoughts about a life with no boxes?  Imagine you had no label and your children had no label how would life be different?

I am currently pondering this thought and will get back to whoever reads my rants at some stage as to where I am with this.

I found this quote today and it resonated with this post and I thought you may like to ponder it as well.
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

Cecil Beaton

Another week and another few conferences, this weeks reflection links to the IWB conference that was held in Melbourne. The conference itself was well organised and I believe gave a good reflection of where we are at with IWB’s in Australia currently.

It was where we were as a country that disturbed me.

The conference consisted of presentation after presentation about how these IWB tools can change the way you teach and change you as a teacher. There was session after session on IWB files and the use of these tools for teacher improvement.
The worst part about all of this was that presenters main selling point on these digital worksheets was that you can use them over and over again. I heard “there is no need reinvent the wheel”
Of course we need to reinvent the wheel ! We  have been needing to reinvent the wheel for the last 50 years and here we are after many years with IWBs in our country saying it is not necessary.
I thought at first maybe I am being cynical so I asked a presenter about how these digital worksheets are used in the classroom and the answer I got was “I am not sure, I am just showing IWB files” What is the point of that?
You need content and context regardless of any presentation, it is that context that allows teachers to gain a window into the planning and implementation.
Now is it just me ? Or is there something wrong with this? Again nobody is talking about students, the very real reason we are in schools each day. I did not hear anyone talk about how these tools improve students learning or how students felt about these as a tool. I did see many a teacher showing us how they used the technology but was so sad to see that as a country we are still not seeing student generated content beginning to expand our horizons.
To me whenever we are looking at planning or any type of futuring we need to think about:
•    What do our students need?
•    What can we learn from students ?
•     What do students have to offer?
•    What do teachers have to offer?
•    Why are we doing this?
•    What is the right environment to do this in?
•     What tools do we have at our disposal ?
This conference reminded me again that for the majority of schools out there technology is still a “pull down experience”  Students and teachers pull down information, IWB Files and resources.  We need to work with our students and our schools so that technology and education is a  “push up experience”  I ask people to challenge this notion after checking the differences between upload and download limits in their schools and see if we really do value content generation as much as the pulling down of information.

People need to look outside of the IWB tool for educational possibilities. My goal in education is that kids learn to understand and defend themselves, work towards achieving what they believe in and being able to contribute to the wider knowledge bank.   I would love to hear others educational goals !
Interactive Whiteboards had/have the potential to put students at the front of the classroom for the first time possibly ever. Yet we are stuffing it up ! I cannot believe we are still promoting IWB’s as the answer to your teaching issues instead of promoting IWB’s as a tool for students to have control in the classroom.

So where to from here?  I cannot whinge forever about this.  We must make a change in this, otherwise we will end up with the status quo as the status quo forever.
We do need to reinvent the wheel and the wheel begins turning with students giving feedback and ideas to their learning.  As teachers we get so annoyed when leadership initiate change without telling us, yet some of us do this to students each day.  I would like people to reflect on this:
•    Do your students know the focus of your session before they walk in?
•    Have you asked students where they see the opportunities for technology in their learning is?
•    What content have your student created in the last two weeks?
•    Have you asked your students who their learning audience is?
I would love the answers to these as I think that to move forward we need to keep these things in mind.  IWB’s are a great tool which can empower and engage students like never before but I believe we are at risk of losing all these benefits because teachers, leaders, systems cannot let go and allow students to control the tool and make it work in their learning contexts.  Moving forward I would love the next conference I attend to have students presenting to teachers and talking about their needs so we can begin to match the keys to the locks.
IF there was such a conference where students ran sessions and teachers learnt would you attend????