Change is examined by Doug Belshaw on his blog here

Some good thoughts and I agree with his conclusion that decentralising the current ‘orders from above’ structure might work better, especially with Curriculum for Excellence. Go read the whole thing and leave comments!

Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. ~Perelman

Quote from a learner:

“School is rather like air travel – trust the person at the front and switch off all electronic gadgets”

Via Russell Tarr,

Journey’s End

In western lands beneath the Sun

The flowers may rise in Spring,

The trees may bud, the waters run,

The merry finches sing.

Or there maybe ’tis cloudless night,

And swaying branches bear

The Elven-stars as jewels white

Amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey’s end I lie

In darkness buried deep,

Beyond all towers strong and high,

Beyond all mountains steep,

Above all shadows rides the Sun

And Stars for ever dwell:

I will not say the Day is done,

Nor bid the Stars farewell.

JRR Tolkien

Mrs Walker has some good points which should be considered. She asks:




Why should educators get involved? What difference does using Twitter make?




Here are some answers (which I have chopped to the main point for each) that you might like to share.




1. Together we’re better

Teaching can be a lonely business. In a school where lessons are long and lunchtimes are short, not enough conversations between teachers I work with are about learning.




2. Global or local: you choose

Whilst some Twitter users will not tolerate many overtly egotistical self-publicisers (some celebrities have come under fire for using the service just to broadcast banalities to their flocks of fans), there is no doubt that Twitter users have the potential to reach very large international audiences.




3. Self-awareness and reflective practice

Excellent teachers reflect on what they are doing in their schools and look at what is going well in order to maintain and develop it, and what needs improvement in order to make it better. Teachers on Twitter share these reflections and both support and challenge each other.




4. Ideas workshop and sounding board

Twitter is a great medium for sharing ideas and getting instant feedback.




5. Newsroom and innovation showcase

Sitting down with a newspaper is not a luxury I have the time to enjoy every day. Twitter helps me stay up to date on news and current affairs, as well as on the latest developments in my areas of interest:  school leadership, technology and languages.




6. Professional development and critical friends

One of the best things about training days is the break out time between sessions, when teachers can get together to talk about what they are working on or struggling with. Twitter enables me to have that kind of powerful networking capacity with me all the time. It’s just a matter of finding the right people to follow. As @melaniemcbride said:




“Following smart people on Twitter is like a mental shot of expresso”

7. Quality-assured searching

I trust the people I follow. I hone and develop the list of people whose insights I value.




8. Communicate, communicate, communicate

Expressing yourself in 140 characters is a great discipline.




9. Getting with the times has never been so easy!

There is no good reason why teachers shouldn’t stick with the times, engage with the technology and keep up with the kids.

Taken from Mrs Walker where you should go and read the whole thing.

Via Russell Tarr, well known History teacher comes this site

Motivator Posters

And these are early results

Say not the struggle nought availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been, things remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars:

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back through creeks and inlets making

Comes, silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light,

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright.

Arthur Hugh Clough

So far tonight three S5 students have been helped with sample essays or directed to links for research on argumentative essays due in next Friday. I’m impressed that they used twitter to ask questions and I was able to send links back within minutes. I’m NOT impressed with people who claim twitter is useless or should not be allowed. The cartoon below also applies to IT experts who have no idea how we use things like Twitter, blogs or wikis within the classroom. Cartoon came via my PLN (Personal Learning Network) on twitter which gives me links, advice, support and a good laugh when I need one.

Like Neil Winton says:

…If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less…

I think it’s about time some people got the message – Change HAS happened and we need to understand that we HAVE to cope with it or our students will not.

‘Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time.’

This long awaited report was published today. With some good points about ICT and teachers, yet there will be little or no resources available to ensure we can keep up with the changing world out there. Another ‘wish list’ pushed by the ‘wish list’ Government who hope we will lose interest and they can quietly shelve it (or the bits that might need investment which they can’t afford) as they do with so many things.

Report here

Neil Adam – ICT and Education consultant on Twitter: “A key concern with current teaching of ICT has been the lack of qualifications, skills and status of ICT teachers.” and the report carries out a “general review of ICT in education from EYFS (Early Years) thru to HE (Higher Education)  in Ch 6 without committing to more. See no new support for teachers”

This is the problem – teachers often get shiny projectors or IT kit without training and we have to spend half the budget replacing bulbs, buy in training from expensive experts or rely on the school IT guru to cover all the staff training needs. A long and detailed examination is required to sort the claims from the dross from the spin in this report.

And for those who STILL don’t understand why we need to get moving NOW

Thoughts?

UPDATE: Donald Clark has some  – g o here for his usual acerbic examination !

An interesting film here which always ‘gets’ my students and makes them think….

I very much regret that I was not able to sort time off to attend the ‘unconference’ on Islay this week. From all accounts it was a great weekend, with some excellent discussion and chatting about educational matters and what many of us see as the future in Scottish education.There is lots of great stuff on the wiki here

Several people have already starting blogging about the event including John Connell with a provocative and as always excellent post on the way some people would not enter fully into the spirit of things. An ‘unconference’ is not necessarily an anarchic version of a conference but it does encourage all to take part equally and not to just sit and listen to ‘expert’ telling us what they think and not letting us give our views.

The weekend DID descend into legalised violence and chaos with the ‘unconference’ moving to and taking part in the Islay 7s Beach Rugby on the Saturday. To say that Louise and Tessa and others made an impact in their ‘morph suits’ is like saying Pinocchio is a congenital liar. It may be true but we don’t talk about such things in public! Pictures here and here

Meanwhile those unfortunate enough not to be able to attend Islay held a Flashmeeting – my webcam then died and it took ages to sort by which time I’d lost track and had to withdraw. The meeting itself covered some wide ranging topics and can be viewed here

Keep watching the wiki for updates, photos and blog posts.

UPDATE:

14th June: Some points about future ‘unconferences’ are made by Andrew Brown (Development Manager for GLOW) on his blog here and he reports on what happened here

16th June: Another blog post by Derek Robertson the “Gaming in Education guru” is here and a post by Jaye Richards of GLOW and Twiter fame is here