A number of events are occurring in my professional life at the moment which are resulting in a critical focus on my application of digital pedagogy.  Local, regional and state opportunities to be involved in leading professional development are ensuring I maintain a consistent message in regards to digital pedagogy.  The largest impact is the development of a Digital Pedagogy Leadership team at my school.  The development of digital pedagogy at my school has been slow and generally unguided.  As mentioned previously my administration as recognised this and provided me with timetabled time to incorporate a role of eLearning support within the school.  This will allow me to work closely with teachers to develop practices, but also learn of existing practice and promote it amongst the staff.

The South Coast region recently implemented a program for Digital Pedagogy Leaders. This allowed schools to nominate a leader who would work within a community of other school Digital Pedagogy Leaders.  This is an awesome initiative of @djone91 (you can find her blog here).  Our school recruited a highly motivated English teacher (@skhill_03) who is participating in the Digital Pedagogy Licence Advanced community to be our leader  This is a teacher I have a lot of personal and professional respect for, and enjoy working with.  She has brainstormed a leadership plan for the school.  A process where staff reflect on their practice and samples of work are posted within a community for open access.  This is our Digital Pedagogy Leadership team.

Some significant choices were made when recruiting for this team.  First and foremost we decided that accreditation within the levels of the Smart Classrooms Professional Development Framework was not going to be the focus.  I believe strongly in the framework and its application as a reflective and planning tool, however with such small representation of accreditation within my school diverting the focus elsewhere is important.  Therefore within the group we have recruited there is only one Digital Pedagogy Licence holder (besides myself and the leader).  Some of the others are aspirants currently working towards the licence, and some aren’t.  We have specifically recruited teachers who demonstrate sound pedagogy, commitment to students and influence within sectors of the school.

The plan involves the Digital Pedagogy Leadership team leading the staff through a reflective process, and then identifying practice that can be shared.  The ultimate goal is to have a culture where staff do not feel threatened by sharing their practice, and there is a space where staff can retrieve samples of practice to refine for their own context.

The most significant decision we made with this plan was to base the samples of practice on generic thinking skills, in this case Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain.  We believe that regardless of the curriculum area, the six levels of thinking should be present in any teachers’ repertoire.  Analysis in HPE should be no different to analysis in science.  By centralising the thinking skills and positioning curriculum as context we hope to break down some of the existing barriers that see subject departments working independently of each other.

The greatest challenge for me is I am purposely moving back “from the spotlight” allowing the team to estabish themselves as leaders.  I will need to maintain the message they are delivering, and ensure that what each of them contributes enhances the plan.  But is is time for others to show leadership within the school.  If you are interested in seeing the plan in a little more detail, click here.  We are pre-phase 1 at the moment, preparing the leadership team for implementation.  I am excited by this, enjoying working with my digital pedagogy leader and team and hopeful this can see some real success in development of pedagogy across the school.

Recent work of a colleague who gets a fair bit of blog love from here has seen me reflecting on the inherent risk associated with the expanding use of digital tools in education.  What is risk when it comes to digital pedagogy?  Is it the risk of using the actual tool, risk of failure in terms that the lesson may not implement as planned, risk of inappropriate use, risk of privacy breach, risk of incurring financial cost, risk of any number of things?  To be honest, before this discussion with @mobbsey my thinking on the risks with digital learning centred on the protection of my students.  Since the discussion, and the subsequent web cruising and reading, I am considering a whole lot more.

Acknowledging risk is one thing, one must also assess it then put in place steps to manage it.  The assessment and management of risk is something @mobbsey has been thinking about considerably, and has shared with me some planning documents she is developing to aid the risk analysis and management process for teachers.  The process is similar to that of HPE teachers when managing physical activity.  It is when I made this link to my curriculum knowledge that my perception of potential risk inherent with digital pedagogy expanded remarkably.

First consideration is copyright.  I have blogged previously about my focus on students learning appropriate use of digital resources and their guided discovery of Creative Commons licensing.  One aspect I promote the onsideration of is the aspect of “Share and Share Alike.”  However as an employee of an educational organisation I don’t officially or legally own my work.  Anything I create for use in my employment by my employing organisation is owned by the organisation.  Does this then limit my ability to share and share alike?  I can certainly share within certain boundaries, for example by direct request and response.  But am I sharing alike if the work is not re-posted to a public domain?  Does this represent risk is the use of licensed work?

Secondly, the consideration of license is huge.  I acknowledge the relative safety we enjoy as educators in Australia where use of material for education within our closed classroom environments can occur without fear of copyright breach.  I fear less informed educators do not realise the potential risk of making public materials they have used in such a fashion.  My understanding is by letter of the law if a copyrighted material is used as a learning resource or in a piece of work produced, this can be freely displayed to students and teachers within the school only.  This does not include shown to parents, visitors to the school or sharing to others outside the school.

Is there risk opening our students awareness of digital tools and theirpotential use.  If I show my students that phones can capture images, then phones can connect to the internet – it is not incredible that they may join the two and realise they can easily post pictures to the internet.  Indeed there are many services out there that make this process too easy.  Does this learning, despite being productive and effective, increase the risk of privacy issues with our students?

As I think along this concept, my mind keps running deeper and deeper and I don’t think there is a simple solution to it at the moment beyond the corporate control that currently exists.  My employing organisation has a filtering service, provides a secure LMS and allocates each teacher a webspace.  This maintains control of the resources (which they rightfully own) and ensures some level of safety.  Essentially, within those boundaries the risk analysis and management is already done for us.

And then there is the idea of real risk versus perceived risk.  Perception of risk in regards to digital tools is heavily dependent on teacher experience and knowledge.  A teacher who has not experienced the troubles a digital tool could bring may not perceive as high a risk.  A teacher pushing the envelope of corporate control in the pursuit of innovation and engagement may not perceive a risk with their planned activities, whereas others in different contexts may.  I guess this is why we are restricted, and that our work is owned by the corporation.

Now I know some of you will react strongly to the idea that we as teachers do not own our work, and that the corporate control could be a good thing.  I have had many debates with teachers about these issues, and I have often lamented the restrictions (perceived and real) of the corporate control.  Yet now, I may see some logic behind it all.

In the end, I think the process @mobbsey is looking for is for teachers to think and communicate before they innovate and implement digital pedagogy.  As a Head of Department, I can totally agree there.  I would expect the same of any of my teachers attempting to innovate with physical movement, why should digital tools be any different?

Further to my last post where I was challenged on my focus and beliefs in regards to the interplay and interdependence of digital pedagogy and digital tools, I have spent some time this last week deliberately focusing on functional use of technology.  I have concentrated on not asking the questions about learning intent, instead listening to teachers openly and then assisting them to work around the hardware or software problems they perceive they have.  Through this I have discovered 2 remarkable things.

Firstly, I can see and hear genuine excitement from teachers when their problems (perceived or real) are solved.  An example occurred with interactive whiteboards that are installed at my school.  We have 3 Teamboards and 3 Starboards at my school.  Since the managed operating environment was installed last year the IWB software has not been activated on the relevant computers.  This has not occurred for a number of reasons.  One board is owned by Maths, and they have seen a number of acting HODs since that time.  Three boards are owned by Academic Excellence, whose HOD believes they are inferior boards to Smartboard and therefore has not bothered with them.  I’ve spent considerable time over the last week working with my techie and the board manufacturers to establish a plan of action that would allow me to install the software on teacher laptops and have the boards usable.

To gain access to the boards, I’ve had to enter the classrooms while classes are running.  Its amazing how this brings interested teachers out of the woodwork.  There is a substantial number now asking questions like “Do you think you can get them to work?” and “How can I get access?”  There is genuine excitement as digital tools are made accessible and available.  Now that I have successfully trialled an install on my laptop, my lunches next week are already booked as teachers queue to have their laptops prepared.

The second amazing occurrence I have witnessed is that teachers are much more willing to talk to me about digital pedagogy if my initial approach is about digital tools.  I believe I have experienced much more conversation and engagement by a focused approach on improving access to technology and listening to their perceptions without judgement (a skill that I should be well and truly aware of as a HOD – I know).  There is also the off-shoot of them wanting to show me what they can do.

All of this is possible due to two reasons.  Firstly my administration, in particular my upline manager, recognise the efforts I am making within the school in this area and have created a position of eLearning support where I am provided time to assist teachers individually.  Secondly, a good relationship with my techies which has seen significant trouble shooting to enable this process.  One of the great achievements is the creation of an “Local Installation Logon” where I can log onto any computer and a list of installation files is stored on the desktop.  I then have permissions to install on that local machine.  This has included scripts for installation programs that require OC (techie) permissions, such as the teamboard software.

This does not change my beliefs in regards to digital pedagogy, I am simply realising there are alternate ways to achieve my goals.  I now need to trial methods of engaging the ‘advanced’ digital pedagogues within my staff and those in the “preparing for Digital Pedagogy License submission.”  This group is where a more structured approach can be useful.  I am refining some planning templates that I have developed, and I hope to trial these on my license group.  Their intent is to provide evidence of thought and planning in regards to the use of digital tools and digital pedagogy.  A “Risk Management Template” by an inspirational colleague has opened the door to further possibilities for me also, thanks to @mobbsey for sharing.

So, a slight shift in my approach reaping results.

A thought provoking conversation today that has me seriously questioning what I have been doing, how I have bene doing it and the message perceived by staff.  This is all in relation to encouraging digital pedagogy within my school and promoting the Smart Classrooms PD framework.

For 5 hours today, all HODs and admininstration at my school collaborated on developing strategic projects based on feedback from staff.  We had identified four main areas to focus on, one of which was pedagogy.  There was a significant amount of feedback from staff that inferred they felt their pedagogy was limited by a lack of access to working technology.  In our small working group we decided to separate those comments as a misinterpretation of pedagogy.  We then developed our key issues from the remaining comments.

When we presented to the rest of the executive administration group, one HOD pointed out that 50% of the comments responding to the question “What barriers do you preceive limit your pedagogy” mentioned ICTs and maintenance of such.  He suggested we were taking liberties with the staff feedback by removing this from focus.  I responded as I would normally do in these circumstances and explain that pedagogy is about more than tools, and should not be dependent on tools.

Well a robust discussion ensued, and continued into and through our coffee break.  However it was one comment from the HOD of the Education Access Centre that shook me, and has me questioning myself.  She made a statement that staff feel they are required to use ICTs if their pedagogy is to be considered satisfactory.  I argued against that again stating pedagogy versus tools argument.  She responded that this was the significant message being sent.

Bang.  There it was.  Of course this is a significant message.  We are told daily that if we do not use the digitla tools that our students are supposedly so comfortable with that we will be left behind.  We have significant promotion of a PD framework that requires use of such digital tools.  So is it any wonder that teachers believe the tools are more important than the pedagogy.  Now I know some who read this will defend the PD framework, but there is no need as I believe in it strongly and base much of my work upon the indicators within.  However I had to agree.  The most significant message, one that I have been contributing to, is that ICT use is linked to required standards of pedagogy, strongly linked.

Now I am still not clear on how I feel about this.  It has certainly rocked me and had me reflecting since the comment was made.  Considering that my school has recently provided time for eLearning support of teachers and the fact that we require all staff to hold at minimum the ICT certificate supports this perception.  All I know is that I have significant impact on this perception.  How do I ensure the correct message is received, and staff do not feel the pressure to conform to a perception of a tool as more important than practice?

Definitely food for thought.

I snapped.  At our executive administration meeting my frustration showed.  I am tired of walking into staffrooms and seeing teacher’s laptops left on their desks while they go to class, disgusted when I walk past rooms that have IWBs installed, and the old OH projection screens are pulled down in front of them.  Instead of calmly expressing that our teachers were not what could be called early adopters, I went into a frustrated rant.

Thanks to the sanity and perceptivenes of one of my Deputy Principals, who sat me down in her office the next day for a calming chat, I was froced to reflect on why I felt the frustration.  Our conversation began to impress upon me that I was simply thinking differently than the vast majority of teachers within my school.  I see a laptop, and can run though endless possibilities for it to enhance learning in my classroom (even if there is only one laptop, and its not connected to the internet).  However other teachers don’t see or think like that.

This forced me to reflect on two thoughts in particular.  Firstly, how fortunate I was to be able t connect with like minded teachers through services such as Twitter.  By bouncing ideas off them it certainly helped in my planning and practice.  I mentioned the importance of my PLN in my last post, but a big shout out to @checkingboxes, @agrei8, @mobbsey, @jnxyz, @Mrs_Banjer, @RicardoTech, @betchaboy, @mrrobbo and @onepaulo who have been of indefinable assistance and support to me.  Without them I think my sanity would have degraded significantly by now.

Secondly, that if I could grab all the forward thinking and resilient teachers and form my own school that life would be a much happier place.  But hang on, I can.  I have the capability to create such a school, its just that it is at my current posting.  Its a matter of finding the right people and the right approach.  And by working to change the culture and practice of other teachers, this will then certainly be the appropriate challenge for my commitment to eLearning and digital pedagogy.

How then, how will I do this?  My upline Deputy is supportive and has some ideas, there is a plan brewing that would enalbe this to happen much more smoothly and effectively than it could now.  If it comes to fruition I’ll let you know.

I was recently recruited to conduct a Professional Development session for a group of teachers working within an “Academic Excellence” department at a local high school.  There was little direction provided for the session, simply wanting to have their understanding of technology expanded.  I saw this as an opportunity to implement a session on mLearning.  It also allowed me to practice a presentation I will be basing a full day training session on next year.

When I think mLearning, I think of three things – devices, cloud computing and portability.

Devices

This section’s objective was to demonstrate the functionality of a range of devices for gathering data, then transporting this data back to a central recording point for presentation.  This group of teachers were relatively inexperienced with ICTs in education, thinking of desktops and laptops as the sole items that allowed integration of technology in education.  I distributed instructions and the participants had to complete the task using the devices provided.  As an extra challenge, I had one set of instructions stored on my phone (video format) and these were distributed via bluetooth.

As expected, the progress of the task became slower and more difficult at the point when particpants needed to return their evidence to a central point.  I had established my laptop as the central point, access to which occurred through cabling, bluetooh or card reader.

One device I am really enjoying exploring the educational possibilities of is the iPod Touch.  Screenshots (showing applications installed) are here and here.  Other devices included video cameras, still cameras, voice recorders, PDAs, netbooks and mobile phones.

Cloud computing

The conference participants were aware of general internet use, and could navigate through sites if directed, so this session was more an awareness raising session on web technologies that incorporated mobile devices for functionality, and web spaces that could be used for organisation of teaching materials.  The specific sites experienced are as below;

• Netvibes – use a public page to store RSS feeds and links to relevant places.
• Diigo – host a pre conference discussion on a relevant stimulus (eg. blog post)
• Dabbleboard – collaborative whiteboard that I used as a pseudo back channel.
• Poll Everywhere – audience response system uses mobile phones.
• Slideshare – locate existing presentations an instructor could use (with attribution).

These are all services I use when developing my learning spaces.  Blackboard is the system my organisation uses as a LMS, but I find these services too functional to ignore.

Access

Specifically, portability of work.  Many of us carry around removable memory with work files on them.  I’ve installed a suite of portable applications that allow me to continue my work on any computer.  Currently the portable suite only runs on Windows, so I need to find a windows emulator that can be initiated from removable memory on either OSX or Linux.

The portable applications I use are;

• Portable Firefox
• Portable Thunderbird
• Open Office
• Evernote
• IHMC CMaps (concept mapping)
• Kompozer (web page creation)
• Scribus (desktop publisher)
• FileZilla (FTP)
• Audacity
• GIMP
• AviScreen (screen capture)
• VLC media player
• xplorer2 (file manager)
• Keepass (password manager)
• 7 zip
• Synctoy

These applications (stored on a 4GB USB drive) allow me to complete all my work functions without relying on software installed on the host computer.  I lead my students through building similar suites to allow them to be more productive within the restricted system in which we work.

In 2 hours I raced through these sections, really providing only a tast of what mLearning can achieve.  I will build on this in preparation to conduct a full day training session in 2009 for teachers within my region.  My presentations are built using concept maps lately, and the maps for this session are stored here.

Despite this being the first post on an edublogs account, this is the continuation of a blog originally hosted by blogger at htt://shane-tech-teach.blogspot.com.  I have moved the blog to edublogs.org as I can access this through my organisational web filters, whereas blogger is blocked.  In due course I will import the existing blogposts into this site.

Recently I was invited to share my journey to a range of practising and pre-service teachers.  As the sole Advanced ICT Pedagogical License holder within my region, I was required to outline the difference of practice between Certificate, License and Advanced License.  This is easier said than done, as Certificate and License holders presented before me and I did not want to portray that anything they were doing was less than worthwhile.

In the end I was humbled to in the company I was in.  The six (6) teachers who presented before me were passionate about learning and certainly passionate about exploring ICTs.  It was refreshing to witness teachers both enjoying their job and striving to improve.  However, I believe that ultimately the difference between a license holder and an advanced license is that the license holder is keenly exploring ICTs to build learning experiences around, whereas the advanced license holder provides students a range of ICTs they can engage with to enhance learning.

To demonstrate what is considered “Advanced” practice, I attempted to paint the picture that the use of technology was no longer the dominant factor.  It was not about learning new tools and generating the “wow” factor, rather an explicit understanding of how the practices one implements tie in to their personal beliefs on learning.  It was important to highlight the key terms from the descriptors within the criteria for achieving the ICT Pedagogical License Advanced.  These descriptors reflect the descriptors of the ICT Competency Standards for Teachers outlined by UNESCO.  They are;

1. Knowledge creation

   Curriculum moves beyond a focus on knowledge of school subjects to explicitly create new knowledge and engage in life-long learning.  This includes the ability to collaborate, communicate, create, innovate, and think critically.
2. Transform learning

   There is a shift of power in the learning relationship.  This is more than moving from a teacher-centred approach to a student-centred approach.  It involves negotiation with the learners and amongst the learners.
   
3. Actively construct meaning
   ICT use contributes to learning, and is purposeful.  Learners actively build an understanding of the processes they are experiencing.
   
4. Integrating learning areas

   I have re-defined this as a transfer of learning.  Ways of thinking and working in my class should be transferable to other areas of learning.
   
5. Integral ICTs

   The UNESCO standards state this as pervasive.  ICTs just occur.  This leads into concepts such as ubiquitous access.
   
6. Student negotiation

   Negotiation contributes to transformative learning.  This could be negotiation of any significant component of the learning environment.
   
7. Communication and collaboration

   These are the well publicised 21C skills. Modern learning is all about the learning organisations referred to in the UNESCO standards.
   
8. Continue personal learning

   Role model that learning never stops.  Demonstrate perpetual access to learning through online networks and tools.
   
9. Contribute to leadership

   Go beyond making your classroom an effective learning space.  How do you assist others in enhancing their learning spaces.

So how does an advanced license holder achieve these?  The posts following will attempt to outline my journey with each of these.