So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Response to Derek Wenmouth's k12 Online 2007 Questions

More from me on K12 Online 2007.
I am so glad this conference has been taking place during our half term holidays because it has meant that I have given myself time to watch / listen to some of the presentations. I've got through about half of them so far and am still interested.
For the purposes of this post however I wanted to respond to the questions posed by Derek Wenmouth at the end of his presentation entitled: "Holding a Mirror to our Professional Practice".
This keynote looks at the issues surrounding the use of emerging technologies in the classroom, and ways of trying to make the use thereof as invisible as possible, but he looks particularly at how we should reflect on our use of these technologies.
It is all well and good trying to use blogs, podcasts, wikis etc but the outcome must be that students learn what they are supposed to learn, which is usually dictated by a curriculum.
At the end of his presentation Derek leaves us with a series of questions to enable us to reflect on our own practice. He asks us to chose the one question most appropraite to ourselves...I'm a swot and have answered most of them.

    •    What are the mirrors I am holding to my practice?

not enough at the moment. I think the time is approaching when I need to stop looking forward all the time and just take stock of some of the things I have done in class recently and try to analyse how effective I have been and how much the students have learned.

    •    Who are my mentors WHO I RELATE TO REGULARLY?

I suppose my mentors are my colleague language teachers when it comes to the actual teaching of the languages, however i feel as though there are few, if any, colleagues in school who could sufficiently mentor and coach me on how to integrate emerging technologies in the classroom. There appears to be very little discussion on, or use of these technologies in my school. Every one is waiting for an INSET on them...I am not a "dIgital native" as the generation we teach are supposed to be. I only started to use computers in 1995 when I started teacher training (but it wasn't part of the course). I have learned and developed through my own interest. No INSET or course can provide you with the training you need because the training as we know it doesn't exist. Most of my training and mentoring comes from my blog reading and comment writing and TRYING STUFF OUT...AND FAILING

What is my professional reading?

        Blogs, blogs and more blogs. I have to admit I was never a good reader of academic material...not enough crime or horror in it for my reading tastes, but since my discovery of blogs I have never felt more up to date and in tune with educational thinking. Blogs are immediate and I can, if I wish, comment on what is written. Until just over a year ago I honestly only really spent time reflecting on my practice when Annual CPD review time came about. Now I'm doing it all the time.

What communities of practice do I belong to?
The blogosphere I suppose


DO I HAVE A BLOG?
You're reading it

What about my rss feeds?
Numbers growing on a weekly basis as reading leads me to new people.

When was the last time I observed a lesson?
I have not done this in a formal sense in along time but I often observe my MFL colleagues at work  if I need to visit their classroom.

When was my last presentation?

Done 2 main presentations in last 8 months Communicate.07 and 'shire and city In-service. Really enjoyed doing them and actually felt I was contributing to other colleagues development (thanks to feedback received), but actually done lots of assemblies and such like recently.

Well that wasn't too bad. All of this reflection leads me to the idea that I should really get myself together and go for Professional Recognition with GTCS.

A Big (belated) Boast

Looking on SCILT today I came across the evaluations for Communicate.07 and I have to say it has really made my weekend. Check out   who got 100% positive comments for his seminar. Yup! ,Yours truly. First time ever getting full marks.

Communicate.07

A fine day of learning.

I really rather enjoyed my first experience of giving a presentation to colleagues from other schools from all over Scotland. For some reason I wasn't anywhere near as nervous as I thought I was going to be. Maybe that there were only 12 delegates in my session helped...you don't know what you missed! Unfortunately due to my over exuberance to get started I forgot to press record on the marantz and so didn't record the session as intended.

I picked up quite a lot of information during the course of my presentation. Namely that the willingness of teachers to get to grips with this sort of stuff knows no bounds but unfortunately their enthusiasm is quite often bridled by others who may have control over the IT situation either in school or within the authority. There are some quite worrying stories such IT people who when asked about uploading videos from You Tube said "What's that?" There seems to be a desire on the part of authorities to  block some/all of web 2.0 technology rather than allow it to be used in schools to help educate students on its safe usage. (I know Ewan's being going on about this for ages now.) Youngsters are going to use it at home so why ban it in school? As a profession we need to be aware of all these applications and how to use them.

During the morning I attended the plenary session with Stuart Hay et al from the Anderson High in Lerwick. (Their story of travel adversity brought back fond memories of my time in Shetland.) I came away brimming with thoughts about how we can use/adapt similar ideas if our application to the british Council is accepted. mainly ideas on how to share what we can do with African partners:
    •    film science experiments
    •    film/record debates in mod studs
    •    use different age/stage groups in MFL (ie older native speakers challenge younger TL speakers)
    •    see/hear ourselves as others see/hear us
    •    presenting our locality to others
    •    student research - students have been asked to assess effectiveness of school
    •    shared images course - open to all ages/stages - enables youngsters to have access to higher MFL learners/NS

    •    I am looking forward to investigating their website.

    •    Although school is doing heaps one thing stuart said struck home:     YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE AN INVENTOR

To close the plenary Robert McKinstry identified some interesting quotes by Stuart:
    •    "Almost every department has a virtual and an active timetable"
    •    "Bringing the world to the classroom"

Surely if we can get a project like this off the ground we will improve
unquestionalbly the level of interdepartmental communication within school.

Later that morning I attended a seminar on the use of mobiles in the classroom.
It was interesting in that i think I now know how to go about blogging via my phone
and I also got some great ideas about how to put them to good use in class for
things like directions around school.

So overall I found it very interesting. I have also come back with a vague idea about producing more "commercially" viable podcasts. Not in the profit making sense but can I set up a programme in school where kids produce podcasts in whatever subjects as ordered by departments. Eg if history want a resource on Civil Rights can we produce one for them???
I think I would like to speak to Mark Pentleton about this one.

But as my blog title says..."So much to learm...so little time"

PS I also learned that it's Communicate DOT 07 and not Communicate 07.

You can download my presentation here if you want. (It's a big file so be patient)

Download communicate.07 - Try It and You Will Learn.mov