So Much to Learn...So Little Time

2 Big Questions

Over the recent 2 week October holidays we have here in Scotland I spent an inordinate amount of time watching and listening to various presentations from the K12 Online 2007 Conference.

The last day of the conference was devoted to a marathon 24hr live online discussion via elluminate which I was lucky enough to visit on 2 occasions; quite early on when I "met" Joe had a first verbal contact with Paul Harrington. I was enjoyable but there were too few participants to ensure a wide ranging discussion. I also joined later with about and hour to go and it was fascinating. There were educators from all over the world, all kinds of time zones, all talking about the wonderful world of the web.
This was great and I feel happy about my contributions...and shhhh maybe I'll get a few more readers.
However it really brought to mind a couple of big questions that have been turning around my head for a while. Questions to which I have my own ideas for answers but questions which I feel we should all be asking of ourselves and others.

1.    I love web 2.0 stuff and can see the advantages it can bring to education but how can I persuade the 30 year career teacher that it might be worthwhile (for the kids sake) to take a step out of the worksheet comfort zone  and take on the risk on potential failure in the classroom by trying something new?
The thing that just kept leaping into my mind whilst enjoying K12 was that whilst it is great to find same-minded people across the globe, where were the doubters, those that would force us to counter their arguments to help us prove our point. I think that the answer to this conundrum lies in Derek Wenmoth's presentation Holding a Mirror to Professional Practice. The persuasion will come I am sure when more and more of us seriously evaluate the work we are doing and prove to the doubters that this is not just another passing educational fad...like non-competitive sport.

2. When you look at the cluster maps posted on blogs you see swathes of red dots over North America, Europe, Australia/NZ and parts of Asia. The world is often still green across Africa, South America and large parts of Asia...Hmmmm I wonder why? Could this be the developing world? Not only do these parts of the world often miss out on even basic educational (and health) needs how far behind us are they going to be in the wonderful world of the web. (I have often thought about trying to help my brother-in-law in Cameroon set up a cyber cafe, but as he says there's no point, they only get electricity every other day...30km away from the capital city.)
How can our use of web 2.0 technologies help my little nephews and nieces "au village"?
Yes you all cry there's the One Laptop Per Child Initiative, which is a fantastic idea, but they are relying on governments, who struggle to ensure a simple basic level of education for all children, to purchase a huge number of units. If there is intermittent electricity there is hardly likely to be the capacity to create large bandwidth.
The thing I find most frustrating is that at the moment I don't think there is all that much we can do to help. Our governments and big multi-national corporations need to get serious...more serious. STOP ENFORCING ALL DEBT REPAYMENTS, STOP STEALING MINERAL RESOURCES, STOP BRIBING EASILY ENCOURAGED OFFICIALS. Then maybe individuals like myself and many of you out there in blogger world can kick in.

This article from the BBC shows people are starting to think abpout how to address this issue. But where will we be in comparison by 2012?

Let me know what you think.

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.