Digital Education Revolution - where's the PD for staff?

Something which occurred to be whilst I was attending the Digital Education Symposium in Adelaide was that the Federal Government is spending $1.2 billion over five years as part of its Digital Education Revolution (DER) on hardware, infrastructure and resources - but has not really addressed the need to upskill and build capacity of educators in the use of ICT in education.

Part of the DER is:

"Working with States and Territories and the Deans of Education to ensure that new and continuing teachers have access to training in the use of ICT that enables them to enrich student learning."

But there's no real commitment or clear vision to across the board implementation and support of Professional Development (PD) or Training and Development (T&D) of staff.

So why is there a lack of commitment to produce the PD/T&D - the time - the energy - the resources - and the funding - for staff??

Is it:

- out of the Federal Government's 'jurisdiction' - education is a State/Territory responsibility under the Constitution - so does the Federal Government have no 'power' in the provision of training staff?

or is it:

- because this pot is far too hot to handle - thank you very much? Anyone who works in the area of professional development of staff in the area of ICT in education knows what a hard trolley it is to push!!

or is it:

- so much easier to measure how many computers and learning objects there are and how much faster internet connections have become than it is to measure the increased capacity of staff or the improved learning outcomes of students - will a NAPLAN test be able to measure this?





And as reported by Ewan McIntosh in his account of the 2007 McKinsey Report earlier this year .... It's not about spending more money on resources to improve educational outcomes - it's about improving the abilities of our educators in their delivery of education.

"There are three key points to ... success:

1. Getting the right people to become teachers
2. Developing them into effective instructors
3. Ensuring that the system is able to offer the best possible instruction for every child"

I wonder if our Federal Education Minister - and her team - have read the McKinsey Report?

I wonder how similar Australia's version of the McKinsey Report will look like in 5 years time?

Notes from the Digital Education Revolution – 02/06/08

Realising the Possibilities: Managing the Realities
http://www.digitaleducationrevolution.gov.au/

Sheila Wilson DEEWR
Gillian Crack

The Commonwealth Government Objectives: - Long term productivity growth - Economic Growth - Social Inclusion

Partnerships – COAG - AICTEC – Teaching for the Digital Age Advisor Group - State and Territory Education Authorities

Five Key Policy elements:National Secondary School Computer Fund – Objective: to improve the provision of computers in schools where the computer to student ratio is 1:8 or worse to a target ration of 1:2, $1.1 billion program over five years (2008-2012), $100 million to be distributed by June 2008, Announcement of successful schools in June 08, $10 million over three years to develop support mechanisms for schools in the deployment of ICT provided through the Fund
Fibre Connections to Schools Initiative – Contribute to broadband connections with speeds of up to 100 megabits, Australian schools can become technology rich learning environments, underpinned by sustainable access to speed broadband infrastructure, acquired on the basis of affordably allocation be used to its maximum.Online Curriculum content – Investing $32.6 millions over the next 2 years – access to digital content by teachers and students, ICT infrastructure integrated effectively in schoolsProfessional development for teachers in ICT Web portals for parents participation – Aid parent participation in their children’s education.Better Practice Guide: ICT in Schools

Mark Pesce - Get off my Lawn
YouTube, Podcasting, Wikipedia and BitTorrent were non-existent 4 years ago.

Is the Web 2.0 ‘perfectly normal’ and how do we keep up with it all?
“How Technology is transforming our imagination – the Playful World” by Mark Pesce – looked at the toys which parents are buying their toys – the Furby, the PS2, & lego.

Constructivism: children learn through continuous interactions with the world.

“Personal, Portable, Pedestrian – Mobile Phones in Japanese Life” edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda

Co-presence – the need by young people to stay connected via their mobile phones and MySpace constantly.

You twist the web 2.0 dial one way and you get the Cronulla Riots - you twist the web 2.0 dial the other way and you get Wikipedia.

The current education structure is based on the needs of the industrial age – the need to be timely and orderly was required and the school system modeled this – but the workplace has moved into the knowledge era and the school system does not reflect the need for flexibility and input

Hyper-connected technology – mobile phones, DSs & PS2s – how do we use its popularity to improve our current education systems?

The computer is a window to the world and a whole new way of learning, connecting and collaboration. The classroom is the disruption. The ‘media’ is still portraying hyper-connected technology as the ‘evil’ of our society. People are afraid, as change is happening so quickly, they don’t know how to deal with it. So how do we nurture the change which required for our learners to develop the 21st skills which they require?

We’re all hyper-connecting together through web 2.0 tools like Twitter.

The street finds its own use of things. Once the internet became popular, it only took a very short period of time for people to work out its potential as a social networking tool, as a hyper-connectivity tool.

We are all the change agents – we need to share what we know and what we learn with each other – we need to share what works and what doesn’t – we need to connect with each others – using all the technologies we have at hand. Knowledge sharing is so important and vital to the Digital Education Revolution.

Hidden Secret to education - How do you teach children to focus in a hyper-connected society? We don’t – we need to harness it and use it to our advantage.

Giving a child a laptop, is like giving a child a ‘loaded gun’ – it can be extremely dangerous if they are now shown how to use it effectively – as they create their digital identity. The use of ICT needs to be an explicit function in education. This requires the educators to become the students and learn their own mastery of using ICT.

Sharing is the key to successfully helping educators embrace and effectively using technology

What is already happening locally
Connected, interactive learner-centred learning – Catholic Education in SA
Curriculum Teaching and Learning
A contemporary approach to leaner centred learning

Social learning - the common good – strong sense of collaboration and personalization of education + Learning in an online world strategy = Learner centred learning

Learner Centred: the perspective that couples: a focus on individual learners with a focus on learning – best available knowledge about learning most effective teaching practices.

Know the learner: a focus on individual learners – their heredity, experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, talents, interests, capacities and needs

Challenge: to build rich profiles of student learning, progress, achievement and needs, how do we efficiently manage large volumes of data?

Diverse Repertoires of Practice: differentiated curriculum, personal learning plans, self directed learning, active and interactive, constructive, experiential, collaborative, inclusive and engaging

How can we efficiently and consistently organise curriculum, teaching and learning in ways that enhance collaboration, customization, personalization and differentiation of learning opportunities for all learners.

The CESA Pilot Learning Tool – teachers use the learning tool to document all aspects of offline and online learning in which each student participates. Based on a cyclic approach to teaching – based on Action research / inquiry learning.

Where am I going? How am I going? Where to next?

The Digital Education Revolution and DECS – Ross Treadwell, Assistant Director, Learning Technologies
Treadwell.Ross@saugov.sa.gov.au
http://www.decs.sa.gov.au/learningtechnologies/pages/learningtechnologies

What’s happening? –
Infrastructure – standard infrastructure architecture (SIA Project), EduConnect, KidSmart – IBM, Interactive Whiteboards (Investing in our Schools), Education Works –
Need to look at what are we doing – using technology allows us to look improving what we do and doing things differently
Content and services – The Learning Federation, Digital Learning Bank (DLB), Video Conferencing, Virtual Classroom Works, Microsoft Licensing, Apple Licensing
Professional learning – EdCap, ICT Coaches, e-Teachers, Modular Programs, Masterclasses, Microsoft Partners in Learning
Research – DECS Research Sites, Total Cost of Ownership (CO), Value of Investment (VOI), Bandwidth – SabreNet, Scholaris – Learning Gateway; Oracle L360, Intel – Classmate, Subnotebook devices

E-Strategy Framework – vision and leadership, professional learning, teaching and learning, administration, resources – ICT Strategic Plan 2008-2011

UK 2020 Vision – Report of the Teaching and Learning in 2020

Our education system is being negligent by not providing learning in how to use the internet safely.

Local Schools – What does the effective use of technology look like in the classroom?
Sharing Innovations @ Aberfoyle Park High School
Michael Cowling

Examples of engaging students with ICT:
Podcasting year 9 student’s poetry – writing the poetry – record the poem – transferable to student mobile phones via mobile phones using Bluetooth – in the classroom.

Using podcasting with language students.

Engaging students by getting them to write a response to ‘Should boxing be banned?’ by writing a comic strip.

Using ‘flash’ to create a story or making ‘CSI’ crime investigation mobile phone movies to teach the principles of Science.

ICT is embedded into every class, and students do not go to a special room to access computers.

ICT Mentor T& D Innovations – teacher attitudes to IT, 0.4 Contract – 0.2 teaching, 0.2 mentoring staff – work alongside subject teachers in their classrooms for about 6 months – then available in a ‘consultancy’ role.

Use student energy with teacher expertise. Value how teachers work and learn. Provide onsite PD. The ethos of the school, and the school culture is very important.

Aberfoyle Park High School allow students to use their mobile phones if it's related to their learning - well respected by students

What ongoing support for teacher is there?
Sheila Wilson - DEEWR

Australian Government Quality Teacher Program (AGQTP) – in 2009
AICTEC – Teaching for the Digital Age Advisory Group
State & Territories Education Depts

Summing Up and Sending On
Mark Pesce and Gerry White

Ensuring a work life balance for teachers developing their ICT skills to be effective 21st educators is so important. The need to develop a distribution of burden is evident – creating collaborative work environments / spaces can help spread the burden.

Young people don’t use emails – they use Social Networking sites and Instant Messaging.

Where do mobile phones sit in the Digital Education Revolution?

Eyre Peninsula Sports Academy utilizing technology to offer local education across a conglomerate of schools – a collaborative approach to offer this education to a wide spread school base.

The Federal Government doesn’t have the ‘power’ to tell the States/Territories how to manage the professional development of their teaching staff. It’s the responsibility of the State/Territory Educational Authorities to maximize the funding being provided by the Federal Government.

Notes from mEga 310508 workshop

http://meganode.ning.com/
http://www.mega.org.au/

Workshop 6 – Developing Your Pitch

David Griggs

The Speakers Studio
http://www.speakersstudio.com.au/

What to consider in your presentation/pitch
Content
Process – the way the content is presented
Perception – what others perceive of you – happens in the first few moments of meeting
Permission – allow yourself to do it
Breathing – state of flow

What do you really want?
Who is it that you would like to be pitching to?

Be absolute clear about what it is that you want from your pitch
You need differing lengths of ‘pitches’ – 30 sec pitch – 3 min pitch – 30+ min pitch

I/You
What’s in it for me (WIIFM) – and ‘selfinterest.com’
use more ‘you’s than ‘I’s
It’s not about you – it’s about what you can do for them (the people you are pitching to)

Re-directing your nervous energy
What is your audience afraid of?
What are your audience’s interests?
Who’s the primary influencer on the panel?

The more you know about your audience
Plan, prepare, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse it at least 5 times
Create cheat sheets or mind maps
Don’t use PPT as a cue card system – the PPT is there to ‘add’ to your presentation
Get to your venue early, and become familiar with your space
Getting into the ‘zone’ – breathing, do warm ups, develop a ‘ritual’ to get yourself into character – clear the carbon dioxide and tension – create a trigger which helps you to relaxed enough to present
Imagine they’re all naked – doesn’t work for everyone – it’s about creating the right perception to the audience about building a ‘relationship’

Positive Talk:
I’m glad I’m here!
I’m glad you’re here!
I care about you
I know that I know

The audience needs to be a ‘mirror’ of you – demonstrate confidence and passion – and the audience will ‘feel’ this with you

You need to know the first 3 mins

The secret of success is to be YOU!!

When there’s more than one person doing the pitch – the pitch becomes a ‘theatrical’ presentation – ensure you look like you work well as a ‘team’ and ensure there is a ‘clear leader’ in the presentation, the beginning and the end would normally be the same person,

Think about who you would like to be pitching your idea (if you don’t know who they are – ‘create’ them) and what you want from them and create your pitch around this

When presenting to a Venture Capitalist:

Start with WHY does the world need this product?
Then WHAT is it that you are offering?
And HOW it works?
Finish with WHAT IF the VC invests in it?

Leila Henderson

http://www.linkedin.com/in/leilahenderson

Who are you talking to?
What floats their boat?
How do you make them look good?
What’s your idea?
What problem does it solve?
How will you protect it?
How will you make money?
How much will I make?
When?

WIIFM?
Explain how you’ll become successful
Describe your market, its size and needs
Ask for what you want
Tell them what they will get out of it

Establish your credibility
Team qualifications and experience, Strategic Alliances, Customers, Awards, grants, Capital raising

The Role of Three – the father, the son and the holy spirit; the three little pigs

It’s all about the ‘opener’ and the ‘closer’ which makes a different. You need a ‘hook’ in the opener

Feedback to groups’ 1 min elevator speeches:

Develop the vision and the passion, put it into context, be very descriptive, important to talk about the consumer message but need to kick into the business message, don’t take for granted that the audience knows what you’re talking about, give examples about why they need your product, what do you want and what are you going to give, need to use humour and emotions appropriately, try to get the audience to connect to what you are talking about, emotional connection/hook with your audience as soon as possible is very important, start with an emotional hook then talk about the logical information then finish with an emotional hook – how does your product make them feel better or how does it solve their problem

David Evans

CEO – Director & Secretary – In the Chair
http://www.inthechair.com/corporate.php

Elevator Pitch
For (target customers)
Who (problem)
(Product) is a (product category)
That (solution)
Unlike (competitor)
(Competitive) advantage
We require (ask)
To (use of funds)

Make sure each part of the pitch has an ‘action’

When will we 'GET' the single sign-on approach?

One of the many reasons why Google is so successful is because it has the 'single sign-on' for its bank of tools. Their 'home' page portal - igoogle - not only allows you to draw in all of the Google tools you've registered for, but allows you to bring in 'feeds' like blogs, podcasts, photos and bookmarks from other websites.

edna also has a range of websites and tools for educator which are readily accessible through a single login account.

OpenID allows a user to log into a range of websites which are not related in any way through using a singe 'ID'.

So surely the technology to link a farm of e-marketing, e-business and e-learning tools using a SINGLE SIGN-ON ID must be possible/available for a large Registered Training Organisation (RTO)?

Consider this scenario:

An individual is either retrenched or decides they would like to change jobs or careers or wants to enter the workforce for the first time or after a lengthy absence. They know they need some training.

They access a large Registered Training Organisation's (RTOs) website. They might know what training they require and enter a few key words to find the course they are interested in. If they don't they know which course they should be enrolling in, they are able to undertake a 'Skills Analysis' and discover a suitable course.

Before even enrolling, the individual's 'Skills Analysis' highlights the existing skills they have in this area for which they will NOT need any further training. As this is Accredited Training, the individual will need to provide evidence of their prior learning/existing skills, known as Recognition of Prior Learning or RPL, to gain status for the units of training.

If the opportunity to gain RPL is possible - then an appointment time is generated for an RPL interview - after which the individual will enrol (either online or at the RTO). If not, an appointment time might be generated for some 'course counselling' or the individual can simply enrol online.

This enrolment 'generates' a student identification which is a SINGLE SIGN-ON ID. Via a customised portal - either on campus or 'remotely' - the individual has access to:

- Their enrolment details (ie what units they are enrolled in) and their Acdemic Transcripts (ie the results for the units they have enrolled in) - and allows them to update their personal details

- Their student email and the student intranet/internet site

- The RTOs Library (on campus and online)

- Their e-Portfolio, where they store the work they create for their course, which would have previously been stored on a internal 'student drive'. The individual can then generate 'views' of their work to submit to their trainers, to potential employers, to their colleagues etc.

- The Learning Tools of the RTO such as the Learning Management System, Voice/Audio Tools, Web Conferencing tools, and the RTOs Virtual World. They would not have access to everything - only those Learning Tools which they will require to successfully undertake their training.

Staff within this RTO also have a SINGLE SIGN-ON ID generated when they start with the organisation. Their SINGLE SIGN-ON ID allows them to access to all of the above, including being able to access any students' information according to a hierarchy of authority, as well as, access to their own HR information, allowing them to update personal information and access their own payroll/leave entitlement details.

The staff SINGLE SIGN-ON ID also allows access to the RTOs Learning Content Management Repository, which houses all of the RTOs digital learning objects/content - which reduces repetition in the development of materials, and helps improve consistency and quality in resources - and is easily searchable through the use of 'tagging'/appropriate metadata. The Organisation's Learning Content Management Respository is also linked to State and National Learning Object Repository Networks, which offers access to system wide resources using the AEShareNet licensing system.

Access by hierarchy of authority would also be available for the Organisation's Document Management System and Financial Management Systems.

So why don't we have a system which brings together a range of ICT systems and tools - where the client (external and internal) perceives them as ONE SINGLE functioning system?

Why are we reliant on decision makers who do not understand ICT systems and how they support their core business? And why haven't they included an e-learning/e-business/e-marketing 'line in the budget' to give status to the development of the SINGLE SIGN-ON ID?

When will the techies/engineers of our ICT systems move on from a 'form follows function' approach to ICT system development - and work with environmental designers to develop a 'humancentred interactive ICT system'?

I'm not sure how we are going to be able to achieve the South Australian Skills Strategy and implement the e-learning systems needed to achieve the planned targets of reduced on-campus training using e-learning when our current systems don't fuction effectively enough together or are able embrace current and future technologies to adequately support these planned goals.

Why isn't an ePortfolio accessible by everyone?

Sarah Stewart is a midwife and Senior Lecturer in Midwifery at Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, New Zealand who has been investigating the use of e-Portfolios (ePF) as part of a requirement of her recertification as set down by the Midwifery Council of New Zealand to maintain a professional portfolio.

Recently Sarah participated in a presentation about the ePF Tool 'My Portfolio', and was concerned about the fact "that at the moment it is associated with educational institutions in New Zealand which means only students of the institution can use it. Once the students have left the institution, they are no longer able to use it."

Sarah has raised a very important issue about e-Portfolios - the issue of accessibility of e-Portfolios (ePF) for people who are no longer a part of a formal education/training system. And unfortunately, this is not one which will be easily resolved in the near future.

One idea to overcome this problem would be to create a 'thin e-Portfolio on legs' – an ePF which is more of an interface that will connect an individual’s digital artifacts/identities together, and one in which the individual would ‘carry’ with them from the ‘cradle to grave’. This interface would be similar to an iGoggle or Protopage, however, it would give greater control to the owner of the ePF as to who 'views' what sections of the ePF and would allow access to secure information stored about the individual in educational/organisational databases. This would require a ‘national’ approach to ePF and would require a lot less ‘storage’ space than the current ePF tools, as the information would be ‘hosted’ in a number of locations, and would therefore be a lot less ‘costly’ to the organisation hosting the ePF interface.

This concept, however, is a little while away.

A more tangible and immediate option will be to make the information housed in ePFs 'transferable' from one ePF to another as an individual moves from Secondary School to Higher Ed to Employment, or at least have the information contained in an ePF readable in its own right in other web and digital environments. This way a person will always have access to their ‘information’ by burning it to a CD or onto some other storage device, even if they don’t have access to the tools and wizards to generate this information in an ePF tool.

I have also been playing with the Mahara e-Portfolio tool, and a couple of other e-PF tools, and although they are restrictive in one way or another, they do create a structure for people to develop their skills in using an e-Portfolio.

So, for people like Sarah, who already have the skills of file management, being organised, able to plan and reflection, as well as know the value of good record keeping etc - than an ePF tool will seem restrictive and less useful, but for those people who are yet to develop these skills or develop the confidence to show themselves to the world (warts and all), than an ePF tool will really be of grat benefit, as long as they have access to some guidance and structure in developing the ePF and the skills that come with this process

Notes from mEga 100508 workshop

mEga

http://meganode.ning.com/

http://www.mega.org.au/

Workshop 4b – Developing a Business Case

Christine Cromarty
Export Development Executive
ICT Council for South Australia

http://www.mega.org.au/index.php?docid=91

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/a10/353

Product Pitch needs to be about providing a better service or help them to save money. Don’t talk about the technology, talk about the solution.

Relationship building with the customer is very important

SA has very good networks, and networking mechanisms and opportunities

Marketing Plan

Marketing Objectives - who is the customer, how are you going to access them, can you partner with another company who will complement what you do/sell

You need to be the first in the customer’s mind. Might need to create a category if there are already products in an established category. Ie Coke is first in the cola/fizzy drink market, so to enter this market you would need to create a new ‘category’

Be very clear.

The four ‘P’s of Marketing:

Product – functionality, appearance, quality, packaging, what is the brand and how are you going to manage the brand, warranty and service

Price – needs to reflect what the product is ‘worth’, not what it costs to produce. Look at how the product is saving the customer, the more the customer is saving, the more you can ask for. Look at how the current market place is pricing similar products. Will there be a separate wholesale price for distributors. Will you be offering finance and leasing options

Place – how are you going to get to the customer? How are you going to access your ‘channels’? ‘educate’ your customer – offer to put on a free ‘training or demo session’ for the customer. How are you going to make your product stand out and look different from your competitors. Offer prizes or incentives for the sales people/distributors to sell your product. Make your product look ‘exciting’ / sexy. Include an image of what you are going. How will you handle customer support?

Promotion – advertising, print media, know your customer – where are they, who are they, how can you ‘access’ them, using social media/social networking/web 2.0

Other ‘P’ to consider - Partnering Strategy, Positioning

Sales forecasts
Marketing mix to achieve the objectives and reach the target markets
Marketing budge details
Marketing action plan
Market controls
Other relevant marking issues
Ensure you have analysed your competitors

Development Plan

The plan to develop content or application
- team location and layout, production process and plan, scheduling, specs – how long to develop who develops, who is in the team project manger, programmers, what type and how long, equipment needs, production budget, other relevant development issues

Software Development

Waterfall Approach – structured approach to development

Rapid Approach - build on the fly, need a good deployment strategy, more flexible and adapt to change, need a close working relationship with developers,

Project Management

Risk Management is very important

Executive Summary – 3 pages overview

What you can say in 30 secs which will capture someone’s attention enough to want to revisit the idea or want to know more about the idea.

You are ‘filling a gap’ in the market

Be Clear – say what you mean

Be Concise – keep it short and sweet

Be Consistent – not contradict each other – agree upfront about what everyone is going to say - Conventional Wisdom is the agreed upon understanding

Be Compelling – appealing to the logic, emotion and credibility – tempo – speak slowly – comparisons – speak to the level of the audience – “in 10 years time you will have missed the boat if you don’t get involved now” – imagery – drawing pictures with words – tell a story that people can relate – give examples – project to the future about the world with your product in it – make the audience ‘care’ – be yourself – market your ‘brand’ – paint an image of your business – phrase it in a way that the audience can ‘visualise’ like they are watching a commercial – use shock or eye raising statements – buzzwords - How do we make people care? – doing an Oprah opening her show pitch – make them feel like they are the most important people

Access to Grant funding for getting projects off the ground

AusIndustry website has information about Grants as funding

MAP – Market Access Program - MAP is a grants program that aims to:

• assist small and new exporters to develop export capability
• assist these companies conduct market awareness campaigns
• enable local businesses to develop export culture

The Why 2 of Web 2.0: How it transforms everything! 9 May 08

My notes and thoughts from the The Why 2 of Web 2.0: How it transforms everything!

Will Richardson – A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything

Information from Will’s presentation is available at his wikispace: http://willrichardson.wikispaces.com

Web 2.0 allow anyone to be the ‘teacher’. E-Tools like U-Stream TV offers an avenue to share knowledge globally.

Read/Write Web – Obama 08 website is web 2.0 – Will has been writing a ‘blog’ about the political issues he is passionate about with other Obama supports. Powerful political opportunities.

NineInchNails have released their latest music for free from their website. Anyone can access this music for free. The music industry needs to realise that the Read/Write web has changed its industry and look at new business models.

Online social networks, reviews and ranking allow conversation around products. This means businesses need to be more ‘transparent’ as people start to write and review their products online.

Collaboration is becoming more effective than competition in business. This model is so important in education – educators need to share what they know and what they produce with their colleagues to build and develop more.

A wireless ‘cloud’ over American cities which allows wireless internet access to everyone in that city.

Clay Shirky’s Book – Here comes everybody: the power of organizing without organisation – “about what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures”.

Teaching young people how to develop their online identity is so important. What are schools doing to prepare young people to develop their online identity. We can’t stop young people using online social networking but we need to ‘guide’ them. Young people need to have access to ‘fire’ – but in a safe, guided environment.

Clarence Fisher – Remote Access – is a great edublogger to follow. He has his students read a blog about an African village - Natavillage Blog – and then read and respond to this blog. People from Nata Village start to comment on his students’ blogs – a global learning circle is created.

Learning is changing. Knowledge is changing. Information is changing.

Do we need to ‘memorise’ everything? Because we are more focused on what will be on the ‘standardised’ testing. We are still assuming that information is ‘scarce’. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has all of it content, exams, exam answers etc totally open.

Wikipedia allows the ‘community’ to write the history of the world, collaboratively, and by not the influential/powerful people.

Student needed to do an ‘assignment’ that he didn’t want to do – so he posts a poor start on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia community then ‘writes’ the better version of the topic. Student then hands up as his own work.

The skills of collaboration and cooperative learning will be inherit skills of the future.

When/Where will we be showing people how to access information from digital devices (computers, mobile devices) which have internet connectivity? This is where the ‘testing’ should revolve around. Can you find the capital city of … on your mobile device?

Scratch - Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Yugma - an easy-to-use, affordable web collaboration service that works on Windows, Mac and Linux

Flat Classroom – Vicki Davis – read “The World is Flat” and wanted her students to write about it. Vicki linked her students to students in Bagladesh. This allowed Vicki to create ‘thin walls’ – opening her students to the world. However, we create ‘thick walled’ classrooms through our ‘firewalls’.

Radio Willow Web - is a podcast for kids and by kids from the students at Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska. Each new show is called a Willowcast. Each Willowcast can be heard on WillowWeb as an mp3 digital audio file. – these students value the knowledge that learn and create because they have a wider audience than their teacher.

Our educators need to change themselves so they prepare their students for the world in the 21^st Century. It is important not to replicate what we do now in education. We need to change the pedagogy of our teaching. The power is in the networks which we can develop in the online environment.

Jing - The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere.

The more experience people have online the more experienced they are to suss out and handle online predators. Learning how to be ‘safe’ online is not just a unit of work that they should be electing to do. It should be embedded into all of their learning.

Westley Field – Director of the Skoolaborate Initiative and Director of Online Learning and Manager of IT, MLC Sydney

Virtual Worlds – Horizon Report reports that Virtual Worlds will be being used in education in 2-3 years time. Where are we at to bring Virtual Worlds in our educational institute?

Kinset - is for those of us who like to shop. Stroll down an aisle with hundreds of items on display. Pause when something catches your eye. Browse and linger while discovering new things.

Skoolaborate – is a collaboration of 15 schools from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, which has created an online virtual world for schools to collaborate and share ideas and experiences around education.

Students are mentoring each other to develop the skills they require to function in this online virtual environment. The students are the teacher in this environment.

Potential Projects:
Social Actions – Machinima – A Child’s War – very powerful machinima about child soldiers in Uganda – Global Kids’ Digital Media Initiative; Community Service – fundraising, music; Enterprise – The Mall; Design Challenge

The skills that the students are developing in this Virtual World is being transferred into the real world ie self-confidence

“I’m Westley, I’m 48, and I can fly – please listen to Will – and allow your students to fly”

Judy O’Connell – Head, Library and Information Services, St Joseph’s College

Learning to change – Changing to Learn – recommended video

Are you a Master Teacher or a Mentor Teacher?

We need to encourage and support the use of technology with our students so they understand how to effectively operate in an online environment – and not ‘bunge-stream’ themselves inappropriately, for the world to see, forever ….

Learn how to be ‘synchronous and asynchronous’ online – develop an online identity – develop a ‘personal learning cloud’ of e-tools which you can not live without. Start by reading blogs, then writing blogs, then getting your students to blog. Create your own online existence.

Don’t transfer the face to face skills to an online environment – transform the learning experience which enhances the online environment – collaboration, empower … ‘A thousand minds are better than one’.

We need a ‘new angle’ to our teaching and learning

Combine the Ross Todd leadership and philosophy with the Will Richardson leadership and philosophy to transform School Libraries into dynamic agents of learning – Library 2.0.

Pandia Search Central - An excellent educational search engine

PowerPoint is the digital equivalent of Will’s Friday folder – designed specifically to enable a teacher to ‘tick a box’.

Christine Mackenzie – Chief Executive, Yarra Plenty Regional Library, Melbourne

http://www.yprl.vic.gov.au/

“Informed connected inclusive community”

Web 2.0 is not so much about the technology but about how we interact with the technology with the ability to create.

Sherman Young – The Book is Dead – nobody is reading books on buses – they’re more interested in their mobile devices – texting, talking, listening

Michael Wesch - "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us." – Learn to Learn; Adapt to Change; Scan the Horizon –

The unconference – who ever comes is the right people, when it starts it starts, when it ends it ends - An unconference is a facilitated participant-driven face-to-face conference around a theme or purpose.

If Web 2.0 Transforms Everything, Where Do I Start? Panel: Will Richardson, Christine Mackenzie, Westley Field, Judy O’Connell

If you don’t leave your planning to the last minute, you can request to have some sites ‘released’.

Lobby your Ministers. Parents are powerful lobbyists. Educate your parents, or in the VET sector – educate your clients/students – and get them to lobby the Government.

You find the ‘gems’ via your networks. Find one really good reliable blogger and tap into their network.

Think.com - a safe social networking site for primary school students

A photo of most of the Twitterers from my Twitter Network thanks to Michael Coghlan (from left to right) Tony, Chris, Michael, Jude & Me