All teachers are learners - All learners are teachers

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????

Well my first week at edsoft was wonderful.  I spent the week learning about different software applications and brushing up on my promethean and teamboard knowledge.  It is wonderful to have the opportunity to develop training packages with IWB’s that relate to effective IWB usage not just tips and tricks on how to use IWB software.  I believe that effective professional learning needs to be in the forefront of anyones mind when looking to purchase IWBs and am very excited to be in a position to provide this. 

I have been conducting my own personal professional learning lately with the assistance of jo kay and the wonderful residents of jokaydia in Second Life.  I have recently become a resident of Jokaydia in my quest to further explore and understand the fantastic potential of 3d virtual worlds in education.  Personally I have been reflecting what an amazing learning experience Second Life has been for me over the last two weeks.  As an educator who has done the rounds of the ict festivals and conferences where blogs, wikis and social bookmarking have been the flavour of the year it is great to be inspired about the potential 3d virtual worlds have to offer. 

I have rented a space “Interactively Utopia” where I hope to further explore building and learning in second life.  I am being helped along in second life in my learning journey by an amazing group of educators such as Al Upton, HeyJudeJenns, Dean Groom, and Sapphire .  I thought twitter was a great network (and still is) but the personal support I am finding in Second Life is just amazing. 

I encourage everyone to come and visit me (Dewi Kittaj) in Second Life at my new home which you can find at http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia%20II/196/141/25 and I look forward to sharing many tales of my learning journey through my blog.  I would also love to hear how others are using second life in education.. 

Here is a photo of my second me

Hi All,

As a few readers of my blog might be aware I have started a new job this week.  My new position is at Edsoft working as an Interactive Whiteboard Specialist across Australia.   I am extremely excited about the opportunities this position brings.  I really believe we need to make a shift when schools are purchasing IWB’s.  The push needs to move from “what tricks can the board do?” to “what professional learning is provided with my IWB?” and “who from and how much support will I get ?”  I am hoping to make that change that I wanted when I was purchasing IWB’s at my previous schools.

Anyway enough about my new job, to support teachers who have or want Interactive Whiteboards I have created a group on diigo called Interactive Whiteboard Pedagogy.  It is my hope that we can build this group to be a place for rich discussion and support for all interactive whiteboard users.

I have started a discussion on the group website regarding the different changes and stages of IWB practice that are occurring in schools.  I would love group members to add their views on what practices are currently occurring in schools.

I look forward to  collaborating with fellow IWB users and enthusiasts

Hi All,

What a week this has been. After some long deliberation I have decided to have a break from teaching for awhile and gain some skills in the private sector. I have secured employment working as an Interactive Whiteboard Specialist. This should be very exciting and although I am extremely sad to be saying goodbye to my school and teaching it is also exciting to have this opportunity. In addition to this news I was lucky enough to take part in a DEECD Professional Learning Day at Coburg Senior High School this week. It was a collaboration day with Marco Torres. I have been lucky enough to spend time learning with Marco before and have to say it was just as inspiring this time round. I took a large amount of notes and have condensed them into a pdf document for you to have a look at. Sorry if it is a little jumbled but it makes sense to me so if you have any questions please ask me.

Marco Torres Notes

I thought the most powerful part of the day besides the chance to network and collaborate with others was the notion that technology in the majority of schools is a pull down experience where it is used to pull down information and pull down support when really it needs to become a push up experience where students are actively contributing to the web. We are lucky because in the age of web 2.0 this is a whole lot easier.

At the moment I have been working with teachers coaching predominantly around Interactive Whiteboards. Working with these teachers and students I have further seen the potential of these tools to enact positive elearning changes within a school.

To set the scene the teachers I am working with have never been that tech savvy and tended not to use the technology in the area for a multitude of reasons (access, wireless, upkeep etc). These are teachers that have an IWB in their room because they wanted to have a go and saw the potential to take that leap of faith into ICT. Since the start of the year I am observing that these teachers through trial and error are having a go and changing their practice so that technology is embedded. They are also actively engaging me in coaching to support their risk taking. This is resulting in a more dynamic open learning space where new teachers are seeing more experienced teachers having a go and succeeding but also learning from their challenging lessons.

I have read a lot of posts about how IWB’s are not changing pedagogy and that it is not embedding good elearning. After a lot of contemplation and research I have to disagree. IWBs are taking our teachers out of their comfort zones and are driving these teachers to take risks in their teaching. Teachers are beginning to delve into the web for resources and having conversations about elearning which have never occurred before.

So what does this mean for the students in the classroom?

I believe it will result in a more challenging environment where risk taking is supported and technology will start to make its way into the curriculum. For my coaching with staff it provides a method of delivering and modelling all of the wonderful opportunities with elearning that our College and the world has to offer.

An interactive whiteboard by itself will not be a magic pill to a schools elearning integration issues. I think we know this ! and I have never claimed that it would be. If the introduction of computers in school did not provide a magic bullet then IWB’s were not going to either.

However they are a wonderful ‘trojan horse’ for ICT integration in classrooms and I am loving seeing teachers begin to look at different ways to alter their lessons with technology in mind. The other benefit I am seeing is that software that has been purchased across our college is suddenly being utilised for a larger number of learning opportunities thus providing our school with an argument for further ICT spending as leadership will be able to see it being used and celebrated with teachers having a go.

I think right now in Victoria we should be encouraging and celebrating this ’sandpit’ time with IWB’s as it is exciting teachers to use technology. Once the sandpit time is over, like any innovation we would work through the change cycle to further integrate the technology. I think we need to remember that change takes time and involves several stages and right now we need to celebrate the beginning.