2011 Re-Cap Newsletter

Tom March

December 2011

2011 Year in Review

 

G’Day all, here are some highlights from 2011

2011 has been an especially busy and productive year here at TomMarch.com. I thought I’d take the opportunity that the holidays present to reflect on some of the highpoints and even look ahead a little to 2012.

In-Person

KeynotesI’ve had the good fortune to be able to keynote several of the main technology and education conferences in Australia this past year including in Adelaide (CEGSA), Melbourne (ICTEV), Sydney(CEFPI), Brisbane (QSITE) and Perth (WASLA & WASTAA). If you have not been able to attend one of these excellent events and are interested, the crew at the Sydney Exhbition Centre did a great job at capturing my keynote at the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI).

Other in-person work included the ongoing series of workshops I’ve been leading at the Independent Schools Victoria since 2005, the Studies of Asia & ICT workshops Lindy Stirling and I lead across Victoria and the various schools where I’ve spent time this year in QLD, NSW, TAS and VIC. I hope to cross paths with some of you former participants during 2012 sessions.

IP

Web-and-FlowIt’s nice to report that 2011 was a great year for Intellectual Property with the fruition of a long-term effort to license Web-and-Flow templates to the Victorian Department of Education for use in the Ultranet. The eLearning team at the DEECD in Victoria have done a great job blending the two environments and I hope that the effort contributes to student learning and teacher effectiveness in the years to come. Similarly, the most popular link on my site, the ThesisBuilder was also licensed to a private university in the US to support its students ability to quickly formulate a persuasive thesis and essay outline.


Consulting

SungardThrough much of 2010 and all of 2011 I’d been working with the team at Sungard Higher Education to prepare Sungard’s K-12 products for the Australian and global markets. I enjoyed working as an analyst on international curricula and data metrics & reporting for this environment which is suited to large K-12 organisations that seek continuous systemic improvements.

As this contract has concluded, I am interested in consulting with other large educational software providers to help shape their products to support integration of authentic student learning and data analysis that leads to improvements in achievement. Please contact me if you have such an opportunity.

Best tools & environments

Every year I find that a new tool, platform or environment has come along that becomes core to the work that I do. 2011 was no different. Here are three that have taken their place with WordPress, Diigo, Skype, Evernote and YouTube as things I wouldn’t want to live without.

NetvibesNetvibes – Since Pageflakes got a little too flakey last year, I decided to shift my RSS / widget platform to Netvibes. I introduce Netvibes to participants in any workshop longer than one day and invariably find that once people “get” the benefits of a customised stream of rich feeds and embeds, their use of online resources is never the same. Netvibes gives teachers and students easy access to podcasts, TubeChop clips, Web 2.0 embeds and realtime news feeds on any topic of interest.

ClassBubblesClassBubbles – Described by creator Dan O’Brien as, “an on-line tool used to deliver collaborative learning using the best functionality from blogs, wikis, webquests and Twitter,” ClassBubbles fills in an important missing piece in the 1:1 digital learning classroom. I see ClassBubbles as a tool that allows students to use their own devices in a productive way and for teachers to shift from leader to orchestrator. It’s a perfect platform for WebQuests but also a range of uses. I plan to use it to support and certify students’ and teachers’ ICT skills in the coming years.

EduplanetEduplanet – Created by Jeff Colosimo, Eduplanet is a professional social learning platform that is heading in a new and useful direction. Eduplanet combines a very slick social learning environment with rich proprietary content, structured around specific “Institutes” featuring educational leaders such as Bena Kallick and Art Costa. Jeff has been very good about giving me sandbox access to see how I might use Eduplanet to support colleagues in ICTs and student-managed learning. Watch this space!


Writing

I’m presently sitting with 240 pages of a draft of my Next Era Ed book (pdf overview) that I hope to have circulating to publishers early in 2012. The book aligns with what’s been my focus for many years: shifting schools away from the 20th Century’s mechanistic mass production approach to one that can accommodate individual’s joy of learning. In short, Next Era Ed clearly establishes where our schools are “broken” and offers a comprehensive, evidence-based model to begin the fix.


Homefront

Who would have thought it possible so many years ago when I started ozline.com and wrote about our lovely eldest son, that he would now be graduating from Year 12 and getting ready for university. This has been a miracle that many of you will have already experienced, but this is our first time. Here’s a lovely shot from the Farewell Dinner.

Nat & Dad
 

Please send me an email about any of the above.
It’s always great to hear from you.
 

Past Newsletters: November 08, October 08, January 09, February 09, April 09 , August 09, September 09, November 09

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2 Days at LCGS

Welcome!


Jacquie Bourne has arranged for a two-day workshop for 18 of her colleagues at Launceston Church Grammar School.  Although it’s near the end of the school year and everyone is likely to be a little groggy, it’s also a great chance to reinvigorate an area of study with rich online resources and authentic personal learning.  So let’s get to it!

Please begin by using the comments link on this post to introduce yourself: share your name, teaching areas, current use of technology and at least one goal for these two days.

This can be brief, but it starts the ball rolling.

After adding your comment, you might like to download a digital copy of the handout packet for this 2 Day Workshop.

Activity 1: Great examples from previous Workshops

To get a sense of what we will be creating over the next two days, please explore the work created by participants in previous sessions.  Try to notice the features, strategies and benefits gained from such a learning platform.

Works in Progress

Brainstorm what you noticed using a shared Stixy board (try working in pairs or threes and then adding your shared responses)

Activity 2: Discussion on 1:1

Year 9 & 10 students and teachers each have tablet computers for over a year.  How does that change teaching and learning?  Please add your personal thoughts to this shared writing space.  Do you want to consider Tom’s take on the 4 essential requirements for successful 1:1 learning?

Activity 3: Creating Your Smart Online Space

Fine-tuning your Blog

Activity 4 – Integrated Emerging Technologies and Pedagogies

Tom’s pedagogy presentation (download .mov 16 mb)

Look to Learn : : Learn to Look

Online Samples

How-To

Task: Create 2 – 4 Look to Learn Activities for your students

Enrich your site with content and rich media

Web 2.0 Tools

RSS Feeds

Other Media

Manage your Rich Media Links

The ClassPortal Twist

References:

For Ideas

C E QA LL / Seek all!

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

Resources for Creating Your Smart Online Space

Posted in workshop | 41 Comments

WASTAA Conference – Perth

This Sunday and Monday brings a quick trip to Perth where I get to work with The Western Australian Secondary Teaching Administrators’ Association.  It’s a particular honour to share my thinking here because the audience are Level 3 educators, meaning they are “exemplary teachers recognised and rewarded for their exceptional teaching practices.” I’ll present a variation of the keynote I’ve been doing this year with particular focus on the pedagogical / practice frameworks in Next Era Ed.

One thing I may gloss over too frequently, I will focus more attention on with this audience.  Here’s a list of the predictable outcomes embedded in my Edge-ucators Way and CEQ•ALL approaches.

Those who know my work are aware that these bullet lists derive from Self-Determination Theory, Cultures of Thinking, Habits of Mind, Flow Theory, Grit and Authentic Happiness.

All of which get integrated through the new Classroom Routines of the Edge-ucators Way and the Seld-managed Learning Process of CEQ•LL

Look to Learn : : Learn to Look

Online Samples

How-To

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

Resources for Creating Your Smart Online Space

Posted in Keynote, workshop | Leave a comment

Studies of Asia in Hume Region

Welcome to the Studies of Asia Regional Workshop

Please begin by using the comments link on this post to share your personal learning goals for this workshop.
I have the pleasure of facilitating another 2 Day workshop for the Studies of Asia group at the Victorian department of education. Lindy Stirling, State Advisor, Studies of Asia (see the Studies of Asia Wiki) and local educators have organised this session in the Hume region.

After adding your comment, you might like to download the handouts for this 2 Day Workshop.
Studies of Asia Links

Web sites Created by Hume Region Participants

Activity 1: Great examples from previous Studies of Asia Workshops

To get a sense of what we will be creating over the next two days, please explore the work created by participants in previous sessions.  Try to notice the features, strategies and benefits gained from such a learning platform.

Brainstorm what you noticed using a shared Stixy board

Activity 2: Creating Your Smart Online Space

Fine-tuning your Blog

Activity 3: Look to Learn : : Learn to Look

Resources

Online Samples

YouTubes

Looking with Images

  • Pictures of the Week – from Time Magazine – Use this feature regularly to keep up with current events as well as challenge each other to interpret the message and perspective of the photos.
  • Sydney Morning Herald Daily Snapshot – Similar to the Time feature above, but on a daily basis and less about the news and more about culture and the unusual. Question: What would a space traveller decide life was like on earth from today’s photos?
  • Scratch Media! - Australian Political Cartoons from David Pope (better known by his signature Heinrich Hinze).
  • Dan Cagle’s collection of political cartoons
  • 10×10 – Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time.

Learning in a Digital Age & discussion

 

Day 2 – Personalising Your Learning to Personalise Student Learning

Paths to Personal Success

Path 1: Create 3 – 5 Look to Learn Activities for your students

  • Export / Import to begin new blog?
  • Copy / Paste this Post into your blog?
  • WordPress Lessons

Path 2: Web 2 Tools

Path 3: Enrich your site with content and rich media

RSS Feeds

Other Media

Path 4: Manage your Rich Media Links

Path 5: Create a ClassPortal

References:
For Ideas & Inspiration

Path 6: Create Specific Learning Activities

Path 7: CEQ•ALL – Student-managed Learning

Feedback

Important – please complete this form (made with jotform)

Posted in workshop | Tagged | 30 Comments

WebQuest Transformations

Overview

I’ve found that there are two main phases to creating and participating in WebQuests.  First there is the whole immersion and information-gathering phase.  Interest is excited and the problem becomes clear so we prepare and soak up lots of new information and perspectives on some specific aspects of the issue.  Although this can sometimes feel challenging because of all the information available, generally, this first phase is an one of engaged and enthusiastic pursuit – there’s lots to learn so we get on with it.

The second phase is different.  It’s a phase we don’t often get to in our Assembly line method of schooling.  It’s the sticky part after information is acquired.  What’s to be done with it?  Do we hold it temporarily, say for an exam, and then left it go or do we want to keep at least parts of it and add it to what might be called our “knowledge.”  You’ve heard of this process many times and with a range of terminology.  Classically, it’s Piaget’s shift from assimilation to accommodation.  Others have referred to it as “construction of meaning.” It’s the “Ah-Ha!” insight that sometimes follows the “Huh?” of cognitive dissonance.  It’s the painful shift from short to long-term memory.  Bloom’s taxonomy and the information literacy processes that embody it might see it as “Synthesis,”  the putting together after of something new from the pieces derived by careful Analysis.  I have come to refer to it as the “transformation of new information into new understanding.”

The problem with this second phase is twofold:  it’s hard work and it’s idiosyncratic. The hard work is because this task is very cognitively demanding – it hurts our heads and often feels like we’re treading water, not sure if we will learn to swim or sink into confusion.  The second problem is the idiosyncratic part – if the process of “making sense” from complex new information is unique to each individual (can you imagine it being any different?), then how do we “teach” it to a big group of students, a classroom of them, for instance?  Wouldn’t it require time?  A lot of one-on-one Socratic mentoring?  How can this work with typical teacher-directed learning when the bell’s about to ring, the semester end and kids are lining up to accept their diplomas?  So it’s no wonder that 80% of WebQuests leave this pesky transformation bit off – but thus aren’t WebQuests. It also why I get a little ranty at Info Lit processes that neatly label a stage “Synthesis” as if giving it a name makes it happen (I like to refer to that tact as the “Insert Magic Here” approach).  

So today’s challenge comes with a rare opportunity – working with a small group of teachers who have already spent two days (Day 1 and Day 2) gathering online resources and brainstorming perspectives on an appropriately complex and rich topic.  Today we will see if we can design for each topic a process that guides a group of students toward the light, to accommodation, construction of meaning, Eureka! and Ah-Ha.  One trick we have up our sleeves is that the best Group Transformation processes flow naturally from the acquisition of new information that has preceded it.  Just like a teacher working with a group of students in a WebQuest, I will be working with a group of teachers facing the same Task: given what I have learned, how do I shape it into a new understanding, representing Knowledge I didn’t have before.  The first requirement for this task is met: we have the time.  The second follows with what I hope is Socratic coaching and online resources to inspire possible solutions.

Please go to the Workshop site to re-read this article and access online support through further readings, examples and tools.

Posted in Tom's Writings, WebQuests | Leave a comment

Education: We’re in the Humanity Business

The following is a passage from a book I’m working on. I wrote it this morning and thought I’d share it to see if people have any comments.  Thanks, Tom –

<soapbox>

Clearly we can’t simply drop even the best psychological models and digital technologies into our schools and expect profound improvement. Efforts over the past decades have tried, but if we look through the literature and Web sites, where are all these new schools whose enthusiastic students are busy taking on the world?  With the way everything “goes viral” nowadays, wouldn’t we all be copying these incredible successes? If we were a knowledge-building entity, education would be learning about what really works and continuously improving.

We can be, we just need a new understanding, a new awareness.  An “Ah-Ha!” Harkening back to Piaget, let’s go through the process: the fact that “technology + assembly line learning ≠ desired improvements” create cognitive dissonance.  Something doesn’t make sense based upon our current understanding.  Instead of ignoring the dissonance, we could get more deeply into the problem, to explore the gray areas, to immerse ourselves in what may feel like chaos, but once encouraged, our human instinct to learn kicks in and we seek to make cognitive connections between the limits of our understanding and the possibility of assimilating new information and thus broadening our understanding, building knowledge.  The “Ah-Ha” came for me when I acknowledged the transformative power of mass production and the moving assembly line and how it has shaped society, including education.  We didn’t consciously ask for this transformation, but once it began, nothing could stop it.  The “Ah-Ha” insight clicked in when I realized what this century’s equivalent of mass production and the assembly line is.  It’s data – from digitized information, to mass customization, to digital footprints and profiling, to smart algorithms that just get smarter through our use. Just as Henry Ford said, we asked for a faster horse, but when the affordable automobile came along, we hopped aboard and never looked back.  Those who lament the unintended negative consequences the automobile has had on society and the environment may envision similar downsides to the next revolution through Data mining, but it can’t be stopped.  Is anyone asking for poorer search results, less engaging entertainment or losing touch with friends?  Just as factories can accost humanity whether in 19th Century England, 20th Century American or 21st Century China, our digital technologies will have their victims while the wider culture embraces what digital data makes available.  I’d like to suggest that the victims are not the few horrible cases where Facebook is used by predators to stalk and lure the innocent and naïve.  Although blared across the media and clearly tragic, the real victims will number in the millions.  And as the world has suffered from the impact of the automobile, another, more analogous revolution, more pertinent to Education and technology’s impact on humanity, is the television.  In some ways TVs were the next revolutionizing product after the car to come off the assembly line.  Like digital technologies, they also provided a platform for entertainment and socializing that was completely different from what went before.  I find it amazing that people will complain about the remote possibility of a child falling prey to Internet-facilitated abduction, but not monitor a child’s access to hours of gaming, chat or surfing.  I saw a chilling example recently in a doctor’s office waiting room.  A young mother waited with a new-born in a stroller while her toddler danced around the chairs, magazine racks, other patients.  This young thing was not being a nuisance, but being a child, seeking something to do.  My complaint is not that the mother didn’t reign-in this free spirit, but that never once did the mother look up from her iPhone and Facebook.  This is what I think people don’t get and makes me harp on and on.  The media loves a good hysteria, but ignores drugs to the masses.

As educators we are in the Humanity business. We can not disconnect from the wider technological and social transformations swelling over the globe.  We don’t have that power.  Just as we couldn’t provide a scalable alternative to the Assembly line school.  What we’ve done is try to humanize this artificial construct as much as we can.  We are better at this in the early years when the system is less artificial – when students aren’t shifted down the conveyor of content areas to the ring of a bell and shuttled off to the next stage, the next classroom and year level.

So while we have no power to stop – and really wouldn’t want to – the next revolution based on digitalized data mining, at this early stage of the transformation, we can have a greater impact than we will be able to once the model and patterns are fully functional and implemented.  Reflect on how difficult it is to even tweak the current model to consider block schedules, inter-disciplinary studies, cross-age learning or team teaching?  Once the dust settles, it will be just as impossible to modify the next model of schooling.  Unless we get involved now, in this early and dynamic, sometimes stressful and chaotic transitionary period, software companies, textbook publishers, teachers unions, politicians, and hardware manufacturers will create “solutions” and they will all target the largest customers, the largest educational systems, those that, because of their size, still embrace and are founded upon “one-size-fits-all” and minimizing risk and failure.  In other words, 20th Century thinking.

As educators, in the humanity business, our challenge is to use the best tools and approaches currently available to effect the changes that we can – what happens in our classrooms and our schools.  This requires taking risks, choosing to do what’s right as opposed to choosing what’s easy or doesn’t create friction to the assembly line.  Let’s not support the myths that “School is Learning,” that “Curriculum is Knowledge,” that “Results are more important than Wisdom.”  Our mass production schools will not be the same by the time our Kindy students graduate Year 12.  Right now, during this little window between eras, we can influence whether “not the same” means “better” or “worse.”

</soapbox>

Posted in Soapbox, Tom's Writings | 2 Comments

QSITE Conference

It’s a joy to be back at the QSITE conference where I’ve had the pleasure to keynote several times. Because the most recent was 2007, I’m looking forward to sharing how strategies like The Edge-ucators Way and CEQ•ALL have blossomed into NextEraEd. By the way, QSITE is the Queensland Society for Information Technology in Education and my sessions are on September 29 at St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School, south of Brisbane.

The Edge-ucators Way

Look to Learn

Samples

Resources

Interaction: Comment on this Post: how could you use / support Look to Learns?

ClassPortals

References:

For Ideas & Inspiration

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics you think would make good ClassPortals

WebQuests

WebQuests by Tom

Resources

Articles

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics / Big Questions for possible WebQuests (Group 1 & Group 2)

[polldaddy poll=5404512]

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

C E QA LL / Seek all!

Interaction: ClassBubbles to share your thoughts (use key: nexteraed)

Activity: Creating Your Smart Online Space

Activity – Web 2 Tools

Posted in Keynote | 15 Comments

Recorded Keynote

View “It’s Broke – So Let’s Fix it!” Keynote

On June 16, I had the opportunity to keynote day two of the CEFPI Conference (Council of Educational Facility Planners International) at the Sydney Convention Centre. This was a fantastic conference in a great facility.  Fortunately the organisers secured InfoShare Technologies to record the keynotes.  Simon Gazey and his team have really done a professional job.  Over the years I’ve had a number of my sessions recorded or streamed and have never bothered sharing the result, but his time the production is so good that I feel their is some benefit in making it available.
Because the production is Flash-based, I can’t provide a fixed link, but you will have to go through the few steps below. Please access my keynote, but also take the time to explore the others — all great educators — especially the June 15 keynote by Charles Leadbeater.

Getting to the Keynotes

1) Go to the special micro site set up for the CEPFI conference.

2) Click on the graphic

 

3) Click on the tab for Thursday, June 16.  Then click on the video thumbnail.

 

The video will begin to play with the slides automatically synced.

 

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Sydney Region Leaders Conference

Welcome!

Workshop

As the culmination of an evolving model called The Edge-ucators Way, Tom will engage participants in exploring three core strategies and a model to promote student self-initiated learning.
(Want to try ClassBubbles? – use key: detnsw)

 

Keynote

I have the pleasure of sharing “It’s Broke – So Let’s Fix it” with the leaders of government schools in the Sydney region.  The key points are to focus on our most important tasks: changing classroom practices to leverage ICTs to support the best in evidence-based pedagogies, to break free from a century’s worth of habits and emerge into a new Era of Education.  A pdf of the keynote is available.

The Edge-ucators Way

Look to Learn

Samples

Resources

Interaction: Comment on this Post: how could you use / support Look to Learns?

ClassPortals

References:

For Ideas & Inspiration

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics you think would make good ClassPortals

WebQuests

WebQuests by Tom

Resources

Articles

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics / Big Questions for possible WebQuests (Group 1 & Group 2)

[polldaddy poll=5404512]

Activity: Creating Your Smart Online Space

Activity – Web 2 Tools

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

C E QA LL / Seek all!

Posted in Keynote, Tom's Work, workshop | 1 Comment

Adelaide – CEGSA

CEGSA – August 13 – Adelaide, South Australia

Computers in Education Group South Australia

St Peter’s College Junior School, North Terrace, St Peters.

Keynote: “It’s Broke, so Let’s Fix it” – re-making education for our Digital Era

We now live in era when self-motivated students with computers and broadband access can learn more than they could in school.  Not surprising since “school” is a construct designed using the best technology available one hundred years ago.  Although education has tried many reforms in the past thirty years, all have been based on this old model.  It’s time for a new construct.  Society has changed around us, undermining cultures focused on standardised outcomes and the myth of uniform excellence.  In other words, a culture like “school.”  The world surrounding schools has moved from a “one-size-fits-all” mentality to one where digital customisation enables a world “all-fit-to-one’s-size”.  In this new reality, learn about the four critical pieces needed to succeed and how you can get students and staff started today!

Presentation slidesdownload: 22 mb .mov (download the file and then open in a movie viewer or Firefox)

90 min hands-on Workshop: “Unpacking Next Era Ed”

This hands-on workshop follows from the keynote, “It’s Broke, so Let’s Fix It!” and details the main strategies of The Edge-ucators Way and CEQ•ALL (“Seek All”).  Find out how Web 2 tools and rich media can be integrated into evidence-based frameworks that you can use to shift from teacher-directed to student-managed learning that will span students’ school years and result in greater achievement and preparation for their futures.

The Edge-ucators Way

Look to Learn

Samples

Resources

Interaction: Comment on this Post: how could you use / support Look to Learns?

ClassPortals

References:

For Ideas & Inspiration

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics you think would make good ClassPortals

WebQuests

WebQuests by Tom

Resources

Articles

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics / Big Questions for possible WebQuests (Group 1 & Group 2)

[polldaddy poll=5404512]

Activity: Creating Your Smart Online Space

Activity – Web 2 Tools

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

C E QA LL / Seek all!

Posted in Keynote, Tom's Work | 19 Comments