Yesterday I invited two staff members to be the teachers in this project.  Both seemed excited by the invite which is a good thing.  I have purposely picked them for a number of reasons.

Staff member A sits in the main HPE staffroom and I believe has the potential to be an excellent teacher.  2010 will be their 3rd year at our school.  They are well organised and always working within timelines from myself or administration.  They have spent large amounts of time preparing resources for their classes, and although this will change tact with this project the time commitment is important.  Their learning management needs refinement, and I believe this process will allow them to critically reflect on their influence on the learning environment and improve their practice acordingly.

Staff member B is my most energetic and motivated staff member.  They are constantly seeking advice and feedback on performance and show an ability to critically reflect and adapt their practice.  They sit in a staffroom across the other side of the school, which should result in a spreading of the influence of the project.  The fact that they like to talk about their teaching will aid this process.  This will also encourage me to leave the main HPE staffroom more often to interact with my other staff.  This staff member is well organised and always works within timelines.  They seem to thrive in team situations, although I see the potential for leadership within them.

So now I am getting excited.  At this point there are three priorities that need to be addressed.  First and foremost I need to formalise the plan for the project.  As it is an action learning project I need to frame it as such.  This includes the recruitment of critical friends.  I’d like to have critical friends for each of the following aspects;

• syllabus implementation
• staff development
• student achievement and satisfaction data
• pedagogical practices
• digital pedagogy (incl. use of specific tools and processes)

There may be other areas I incorporate critical friends and no doubt they will become evident in the plan formalisation process.  I have not yet identified the requirements or commitment of critical friends, but if you are interested in being one for this project then I encourage you to let me know.  If you can’t dedicate the time (I know we are all busy) there will be opportunity to read our progress and comment as such.

Secondly I need to provide a range of readings to my staff to increase their understanding of transformative theory.  I will do this through the creation and transfer of a Zotero notebook, demonstrating to them the use of such technologies that I want incorporated into the project.  Thirdly, we need to meet to refine the work program so that it enables the success of the project.  Aspects like the use of physical activities that allow the teachers to be “close” in the early stages.  Our classroom is next to our hall, so if the first unit of work has an activity in the hall the teachers will be relatively close.  This will enable student choice and teacher support of each other.

I can feel the momentum building.  I am excited, I am heartened by my staff’s excitement.  And I am strong due to your support.  Those that are reading this and sending comments via the blog, twitter, email or facebook are keeping me strong.  Thanks to those who have already volunteered to be a critical friend.

I had the opportunity during the week to use my organisation’s installation of Elluminate (we call it iConnect) to deliver two virtual presentations.  The first was part of a two day conference for Heads of Department to provide them information, knowledge and skills to lead their faculties towards a connected learning environment.  This was my first attempt at presenting virtually and I must say it was an interesting experience.  The fact that I could not see the audience, and the fact that this was probably their first experience with the technology for web conferencing, restricted the engagement I normally seek with a group.  It was also interesting just simply plowing through and not stopping to answer questions or querying looks.  I think the group was inhibited from asking questions due to the delivery method, something I will need to facilitate if I get the chance again.

If you ask @joram10 who was “the boss” for the workshop, there was most likely a distinct advantage to the web conference.  She could send me messages in regards to timing.  This allowed her to keep to the set agenda more firmly.

If you are interested in watching, you should be able to access the recording here.  Password is hods.  Enjoy.

This has been one heck of a week, and my head is swimming with so much information and ideas that I am sure it will take me awhile to sort it all out.  The Smart Classrooms Innovation Expo is the premiere event for the Smart Classrooms strategy within our organisation.  Two days of presentations from current practitioners and international thinkers has inspired and informed.  This year the conference organisers actively promoted the use of Twitter as a backchannel, and the tweets came strong and fast.

Thanks to the Twitter backchannel, I could tag tweets from presentations I was not attending.  This will ultimately enable me to learn more than I could have if a backchannel did not exist.  I’m sure it will take me a good couple of weeks to sort through the tweets, notes and bookmarks I’ve tagged as the conference progressed.  I was reasonable happy with my choices of presentations – a balance between supporting friends and accessing what I was keen on learning.  My top sessions were Kristine Kopelke’s building flash applications for mobile devices and Stephen Heppel discussing the concept of agile learning.  Both awesome.

If you wish to sort through my notes (if you are not patient enough to wait for me to sort through them) then access the following;

1. My Evernotes – here
2. My bookmarks – here
3. RSS feeds of Twitter hashtag searches – sc09expo

After the Innovation Expo, I was fortunate enough to attend a MasterClass for Smart Classrooms teacher award winners.  Only 12 award winners were announced from across the state so needless to say I was in pretty special company.  Each of the award winners is inspirational in their own right, and working with them over the last two days has motivated me to further the development of digital pedagogy and capability within my own school.

As I process this wealth of information I know I will develop my own abilities and understanding, leading towards improving my personal performance.

Today I had the joy of running a professional development day at Ormeau Woods SHS.  It was a treat to work in a well thought out library, and with a great group of enthusiastic teachers.  The title of the session was I’m mobile, and in the clouds! The day was split into three general time blocks, each one dedicated to one of mobile learning, cloud technologies or portable applications.  If I’ve learnt anything its that I tried to cram too much into one day.  Realistically I could have dropped the portable applications and devoted more time to the cloud technologies.  If you are interested in the content of the session, click here.

It was also interesting to observe them when given time to practice.  A range of actions were observed, with a wide ranging variety of questions being asked and answered around the room.  I had never specifically planned time to allow free practice before in a PD session, but wanted to dedicate the time following feedback from previous full day events.  This allowed the participants time to think, try and question.  I particularly found it comforting when they questioned whether the application of technologies I demonstrated were relevant to their context.  This comforted me because I believe by doing this they are demonstrating digital pedagogy, where the learning is important and tools are simply tools.  If the tools I choose to use are not relevant, they should not bother with them.  This is the first PD I have conducted where this has happened.

It is that simple shift of thinking beyond the tool to purposeful application that is exciting.  The change is happening.

Recently I was fortunate enough to be involved in the facilitation of a workshop designed to prepare HODs and HOCs (middle management) for a 1:1 environment.  The 1:1 environment will essentially be forced upon all secondary schools by the current federal government as they fund the provision of computers and laptops for every student in years 9 to 12.  Unfortunately, too many school administrations believe that preparation for a 1:1 environment is as simple as having the space and furniture.  Inevitably this results in poor integration of ICTs into the curriculum.  One particular session I was responsible for was entitled “What it looks like.”  My role here was to describe some of the processes I have in place to enable a rich ICT experience for learners in my class and staff in my school.  As regular readers of my blog will know, the whole school strategy is very new therefore I could not provide much information there.  However I could provide plenty of ideas in regards to processes I put in place to enable ICT rich learning in my classes.

My interpretation of a 1:1 environment is more complex than having 1 device for each child. Its about a process that encourages use by students to achieve learning outcomes.  My 1:1 environment involves four processes.

1. Increase choices
   I’ve found in my experience that when you increase the options available to students, the use of ICTs in learning is greater than when you specify a particular item. Sometimes one has to be creative in promoting this choice.  For example you may wish your students to blog a response.  This does not provide them a choice, but if you ask them to choose how they blog (words, audio, pictures) then engagement generally increases.  I have no hard data to support this, just observations from my own experience.  In particular I notice that when a range of devices are available, then student use is increased.  Not all may use the camera, but if they can choose between camera, iPod, phone, audio recorder and Flip Mino there is bound to be something they will use.

   The increasing choices also aligns with a significant aspect of Transformational Learning Theory – student negotiation.  Provide the learners with some power in the learning relationship for increased engagement and ownership of learning.

2. Increase access
   Improving access to ICT is as much about learning design as it is marketing.  By designing learning experiences and assessment items that utilise ICTs you are increasing required access.  Marketing is still for me the biggest challenge.  This marketing could be relevant to staff and administration in an attempt to change policy and allow or encourage utilisation of a particular device or resource, or it could be to students by demonstrating the benefits of use to their life long learning (learning beyond that required within my subject).
3. Increase usability
   Increasing usability has some crossover with the concept of increasing access.  Through marketing of benefits I hope to promote the usability of certain technologies to life long learning, and cross curricula performance.  I believe the main influence on increased usability is the role modelling by the teacher.  If the learners see the teacher using the resource effectively, they are more likely to attempt use themselves.  So increasing usability for me is generally a focus on teacher competence and utilisation of a resource.
4. Increase prevalence
   The age of ubiquitous learning – anytime, anywhere, anyhow.  This in itself drives the need for increased prevalence of ICTs.  I specifically encourage my learners to continue learning once they leave the boundaries of the timetabled class and walled classroom.  Simply using a camera to capture items of interest as they continue through their lives, and using them when in th “boundaried learning” is a step towards ubiquitous learning.  The concept of information consumption and analysis as continuous is enhanced and enabled by the use of a range of devices and technologies.

The Smart Classrooms strategy of my employer has developed a concept entitled 21 Steps to 21st Century Success which outlines a program of preparation for a 1:1 environment.  My take on it is a little more focussed on learning implementation but both deomonstrate the need for preparation prior to implementation.

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.

My two previous posts have referred to a professional development session which I was fortunate enough to be invited to, discussing a framework for eLearning.  At this professional development conference I had the opportunity to experience productive and collaborative collation of notes and resources with @jnxyz, @gayleenjackson, @checkingboxes, @hoyshane and a number of other conference participants, and demonstrate the power of this to other conference attendees.  For me it was exciting to participate, and ultimately rewarding when I reflect back on the portfolio of information, links and resources we have developed.

Initially a conference tag needed to be set, and this can be seen in my previous posts.   I have invested more of my time into consistently tagging my information across various platforms recently, and realise the convenience of setting and using such a tag.  When we explained the tag to the group, my perception was that many did not understand what I was talking about.  If you do not,search in google for #WTDW and you will see the benefits of a common tag for an event. @gayleenjackson set the tag, and we were away.

The collaboration consisted of tagged tweets in Twitter, public notes in Evernote, bookmarks in Delicious, a conference Ning and an etherpad.  These allowed us to post links to resources, import RSS feeds and sort information for our liking.  Through this whole process I see two significant benefits;

1. All the information is stored in the cloud, and is therefore accessible to anyone.
2. Collaborative memory is more extensive than individual memory.

My brain has been running since thinking how can I incorporate this in my teaching.  Currently I use tags, and searches of tags, to provide feeds of information from my work to students.  I could definitely use public evernotes to proide links to my notes.  Currently I export Zotero notebooks to students who use Zotero.  The same could be done for students using evernote.  We do collaboratively research and store this in a wiki within BlackBoard, but this is generally typed, copied or links.  I could expand this by educating students on RSS feeds and tags.  However one main difference remains.  In this collaborative experience, we each contributed how we were comfortable and then shared with each other.  Some conference members were only comfortable sharing within the Ning blogs.  What is important is the sharing, the collaboration.  The location is simply a function of familiarity and choice.  The colleagues I worked with on this day are more comfortable with the tools mentioned, and this is where I regularly interact with them.  My students however collaborate in entirely different forums and environments.  It is unreasonable for me to expect them to move to my way of thinking (as I have with Zotero) without similar adaptation in reversed roles.  I should be learning about their environments more concentratedly, and exploring options to utilise that for productive communication, collaboration and learning.

The power of networked learning outperforms that of any individual.  It was great to experience real collaboration (common goal and unrestricted sharing) and I’ve no doubtmy learning has benefitted.

The TPACK framework has inspired me to work within my own school to build and implement an eLearning framework – something which has been sadly lacking.  I’m excited to work with @skhill_03, a senior English teacher who is our nominated Digital Pedagogy Leader (a regional program conducted by @djone91) and the Deputy Principals responsible for IT and Pedagogy.  We will base the framework on Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain as it is already instilled as a framework for our academic excellence program.  We intend to develop a community approach to sharing productive digital pedagogy which ties in with the staff review and performance plans that will be implemented later this semester.  As this project progresses I will undoubtedly report on it here.

I’ve been reading, thinking, concept mapping, reading again, thinking more about Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework as briefly outlined in my previous post.  In particular I have been thinking how this might actually look within the context of my practice.  Reflecting on the diagram embedded from the official TPACK wiki (in my previous post) the focus of intent is the represented in the centre, as the intersection between the three knowledge types.

However, in thinking about how I progress through a unit of work and how it can be related to the TPACK diagram, I come to the conclusion that I tend to act like a circling shark.  I don’t begin at the central point of the TPACK framework, but rather aim to end up there.  I see that focal point as the point at which the students are experiencing a range of learning experiences within which they negotiate the pathway.  If the three arms of the framework have been implemented effectively, learners may not see the distinction between the separate knowledge types.  I am aware there are times where I focus specifically on development of content knowledge.  I am also aware that simply because Content Knowledge is the focus at that specific time, I am not ignoring Pedagogical or Technological knowledge.

Within the discussion on the Classroom 2.0 site where TPACK is presented, Punya Mishra (one of the professors credited with development of the TPACK framework) states that the framework is a continuum, in reference to teacher development.  I am beginning to think that it may also be a continuum in reference to point in time learning management.  I envisage myself as a single point roaming through the diagram, progressively getting closer to the central focus.

The reflection above does take the point of view of the TPACK framework as a working / implementation framework.  If I consider it as a planning framework then I recognise a very different approach.  I’m not quite sure how this might look in application.  The point Punya Mishra makes on the Classroom 2.0 discussion is important though – The important goal is that opportunities to develop TPACK, whether for a beginner or an expert, deal with all three of these components together, not independent of each other.

As I write this, it becomes clear to me that the three types of knowledge are well known.  Whilst at university I took many courses built on Content Knowledge and a few built on Pedagogical Knowledge.  Since teaching I have had many opportunities to experience Professional Development built on Technological Knowledge.  Rarely have I experienced them in partnership though.  So this will be a real challenge for me.  Especially as I (possibly) use it to develop my ability to build capacity of teachers.  Currently within my school I am working in a range of paths represented by this framework.  For some teachers I am definitely focused on pure Technological Knowledge.  I don’t believe that individually I can target the convergence of the three knowledge types.

Consider that I am trained within a specific subject discipline, and therefore have specialist knowledge.  This would suggest as an individual I could only build the TPACK capability of teachers within the same subject discipline.  As an individual I could address the convergence of Technological and Pedagogical Knowledge within teachers not teaching within my subject discipline.  And this in itself highlights a very important factor in the continual development of teachers – an individual approach cannot be completely effective.  Any person responsible for the Professional Development of teachers needs to engage in a team setting, and I suggest this is most effectively done with the specific clientele who have elected to attend your seminar, workshop or session.

My brain is exceptionally jumbled with the thinking around this framework (could you tell?) at the moment, hoping for some clarity on Tuesday.

The title to this post is grabbed from the title of a professional development session I have been fortunate enough to have been invited to next week.  I have indulged in some pre-reading around the concepts which I have to say has been enlightening and somewhat thought provoking.  I have assumed from the agenda that the we will be exploring two frameworks as tools to design learning experiences that encourage critical thinking.  The two frameworks are Bloom’s Taxonomy and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK).  I have worked in depth with Bloom’s taxonomy throughout my teaching career, however this is the first I have experienced of TPCK.  The concept maps that are published in relation to it explain the concept simply enough.

When I viewed this for the first time, my initial thoughts were “Of course, that’s obvious.”  My initial reaction was one that teaching and learning should be targeting the juncture of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge.  But as I continued to read it has caused me to reflect – “Do I actually target this juncture?  Do I purposely plan and implement for learning to occur where these three concepts meet?”  This is a question that I am not so sure about.  No doubt my involvement in the professional development next week will provide me stimulus for reflection and planning to ensure that this is my targeted area. Currently I fear that perhaps I target the three areas, but do not converge them effectively.

My researching found me this blogpost from Sean Nash, which has two videos.  Watch these in order and you get an idea of the focus of TPCK. http://nashworld.edublogs.org/2009/04/08/a-tpack-video-mashup/

There is also a great wiki with lesson ideas – http://clifmims.wetpaint.com/page/TPACK.

I encourage anyone on their journey with digital pedagogy to explore the concept of TPCK.  During the PD session there will be a twitter backchannel running, using the hashtag #WTDW, feel free to watch this to get an idea of the discussions we are having.  After the event I will no doubt reflect further on my own practice and ramble on about it here.  I am excited about this opportunity, and can see it not only driving my development of my personal practice, but informing and guiding my training of others.

What a fantastic couple of days.  Our region conducted a localised eLearning conference, beginning on Tuesday night with a Twilight series of presentations from inspirational teachers demonstrating high levels of digital pedagogy and culminating today with a series of workshops participants could choose from.  My rough guess says we had 150 people attend the conference today.  What excited me most was the conversations and networking that I could see happening around me.  This post will summarise the conference from my point of view.

The twilight series began with a keynote from our Regional Director highlighting the importance of quality pedagogy, followed by an informative presentation on the integrated smart classrooms strategy from the Director or the eLearning Branch.  These keynotes outlined the strategic direction of both our region and eLearning across the state.

These keynotes were followed by presentations from teachers about their journey through the Smart Classrooms Professional Development framework.  I never fail to be inspired by these teachers and the work they have done.  They show true commitment and dedication to teaching.  The first presentation was from Belinda Johnstone who has achieved incredible things in an underpriviliged community.  This was followed by 2 teachers who continuously amaze me.  Natalie Pearce and Tanya Wilson are young in their teaching experience, yet leaders within our region for digital pedagogy.  Within their schools they are both mentoring other teachers through relevant exploration and professional development.

We were then treated to presentations from two teachers who were Smart Classroom awards winners in 2008.  David Green and Rosalie Everest show dedication to their students.  David in particular, as he worked with special needs students and relates how he explores a range of communication mehtods for his students to express themselves.  The time committment this would take is considerable, and the fact that he continues to do so is impressive.

Following the award winners, I had the opportunity to represent the journey from the point of view of someone who has achieved the ICT Pedagogical License Advanced.  I can only hope I did them justice.  In short, an inspirational night.

The conference today began with a bang, an engaging and amusing keynote from Adrian Greig (Project Officer – Thinking Digitally) and Emma Heffernan (Manager of Discovery Programs) that demonstrated a range of technologies and their potential use.  Their method of presentation, as a conversation, was quite simply outstanding.

For the first optional session I chose to go to a presentation on developing and implementing a whole school eLearning strategy.  This was refreshing to see how one school had established and implemented a clear strategy to build an eLearning culture.  I took the main idea as reflection and feedback for staff, with clear support and acknowledgement from administration.  I’m fortunate that one of my Deputy Principals is very keen to build such a ciulture at my school, so hopefully this will provide him with some plans.

Over the next 2 sessions, I conducted a session I entitled “I’m mobile, and in the cloud.”  Fun to be had by all.  You can see the pics here.

For the final session, I was torn by which of my fellow Regional Facilitators I should support.  Dawn Clark was conducting a Games in Learning session, whilst Fiona Banjer was conducting a session on managing personal professional development.  As I would not be accessing gaming equipment anytime soon I decided to go with the personal professional development.  Fiona leads an amazing online life, engaging in a range of networks and communication opportunities.  Having her advice on making connections is priceless, and I came away with quite a few leads to enact on.

All in all a great day.  As said initially the greatest excitement I got was seeing the smiling faces (= enjoyment) and hearing the networking which included offers of collaboration and assistance (= engagement).  Simply inspirational.