You learn, iLearn, we all learn!

Halfway through Term 1 already, where does the time go? This was going to be a long term, and there's still a long way ahead, but it's been so busy and exciting that it's just flown by!

Setting up a department in a new school is always a challenge. Try doing it in a school you've been in for 6 months. You are "existing staff" so everyone expects that you know everything, but you've never done half the things before, and the rest you're used to doing a different way. The solution? Listen carefully and ask LOTS of questions. Don't worry about looking daft for not knowing the answer, it's far preferable to looking dumb when you do it all wrong! There are lots of people who can help you, SMT, fellow Faculty Leaders, and the people in your department who've seen it happen before. just because they aren't in charge, doesn't mean they don't have a good idea about what/how/when things need doing!

In addition to setting things up a for a new year, I've got  4 new members of staff and two new courses to support. The newbies are great. Energetic, enthusiastic and bubbling with new ideas. My goal is to keep them like that as they settle in and not crush them under the workload of a PRT (Provisionally Registered Teacher).The new courses are even more exciting, and I'm teaching them both. Level Three Science using the new Earth and Space Standards. A great, contextualized course using scientific skills of information management and data processing to develop understanding in new areas. The facts that it does this by studying exoplanets, volcanoes, oceans and the atmosphere is almost irrelevant. It could study anything and still meet the same goals. But these topics are exciting, engage the students, and we don't study them enough in the "pure" separate sciences!
The biggy for the year is the start of the new iLearn program. A group of Y9 and a group of Y10 students who have been identified as struggling in mainstream classes, but not really Learning Support students. Lets try doing something different and see what happens. A class set of iPads should allow teachers to be a bit different. So I have a dozen Y9 students, with a variety of needs, and a teacher aide to help with the technology. The first lesson was great. Reviewing stuff they'd already done in their "normal" science class, they used a comic book app to make a poster about Lab Safety. If I'd given these kids a piece of paper and a pencil, I'd be lucky to get either of them back at the end of the period. But today I got 6 posters of students acting out various safety issues in the lab, with captions explaining what was happening, how to do it better and what the hazard was. A stunning success for students who generally struggle with completing tasks. Two weeks in and they are able to remember their username (their NSN, so quite a big number) and password, and are getting into the routines we are establishing to enable them to get straight onto learning as soon as they arrive in class. No more issues with missing books or dry pens. Enter, sit, start. Moodle and Google Docs are the main tools we've used so far, as these can be accessed from any device with internet connection, not just an iPad. So they can continue learning after school. Hopefully. Eventually. The only thing I'm not quite sure about is who's learning the most!

It's a long road ahead with these courses, but I hope that they both allow students success where they haven't had much before, and give them options and open up pathways where before they felt blocked and restricted. We don't know where our students will be in 10 years time. All I want to do is give them the tools to deal with whatever life throws at them. It's a small start, but a positive and exciting one.

Three Conferences in Three Weeks

It seems to have been conference season in Auckland lately, especially for those interested in collaborative learning. First up was the KnowledgeNET Conference at Takapuna Grammar School on Auckland's North Shore.  This was amn exciting start, as it was my first conference where I was going to present a breakout session.  I drew on my experiences setting up the Moodle system at Waitakere College and guided people through the steps, advantages and hurdles involved in establishing interoperability, with the aim of empowering them to take advantage of this powerful tool.  I was pleased to have people approach me afterwards and say that they now realised where they had been having problems, that they were relieved that it was worth persevering with, or that they had been weighing up the pros and cons of managing their LMS in-house versus an interoperable system.
With my spot over, I was able to focus on what other people were sharing.  Particularly interesting were the ways in which the Primary and Intermediate students were recording learning journeys and student voice through the KnowledgeNET system, ePortfolios and other online tools.  These students were mature, self-motivated, and setting personal learning goals which they were able to review and assess themselves on.  They are light years ahead of anything I have seen or head of happening in Secondary schools.  Those of us in Secondary education need to seriously step up a couple of gears before these students arrive expecting to continue these fantastic learning journeys, and instead slow to a crawl.

The conference I was most looking forward to was a total geek-fest, with Google in town for the first ever Google Apps for Education Summit in New Zealand, hosted at Albany Senior High School.  I have been a Google tools user since the days of needing an invite to Gmail, but have never really taken advantage of the rest of the app suite.  I was aware of the potential and capabilities, but had never really had the opportunity or motivation to put these into practice.  After a day of being surrounded by the capabilities and potential of the apps, particularly the sharing,collaboration and revision history of documents, I realised a couple of things.  Firstly, these were the tools we should be using as we implement an immersed, blended elearning environment at Lynfield College next year.   Using Google Apps would get around many of the problems we face with using shared iPads, namely that work created by students would be held in the cloud rather than on the device itself.  This will allow them to access their work from any device, whether the iPad, library PC or a home device.  anywhere, anytime access to their learning.  Secondly, if I was going to encourage this use of tools we already have but under-utilise, I need to up-skill significantly and quickly.  So I have made a resolution to abstain from the use of MS Office as much as possible for the remainder of the term, and instead focus on using Google Apps.  This will both increase my familiarity and comfort with the tools, and also drag some of those in my Faculty along with me as they will have to access their accounts to see the documents I'm sending them!

The last, and biggest, conference was uLearn at the SkyCity Convention Centre and associated venues in Auckland's CBD.  Over 1500 educators, plus industry representatives hawking their wares, gathered to Collaborate, Innovate and Educate.  Overriding messages from the three days of the the conference were stories and having a go.  Everyone has a story to tell, and letting them share it helps build successful learning relationships.  How did your students get to be in the room with you?  What do they already know? How can you build on and use that? Having a go was a strong message.  If you wait until you are good at something, you'll never start.  You've always got to start somewhere, and once you've tried it you can work on improving.  But everything has to be done for the first time by someone, be a pioneer and try it.  And if you are a Leader, support those people who want to try something new.  Give them anything they need in terms of time and materials, but the most important thing they can have is your support to help them think through and implement their ideas.
The great thing about the uLearn conference was the way people communicated.  With 1500 people at the conference, it was estimated that 70,000 people had seen the #uLearn12 hashtag appear in their Twitter stream.  It was fantastic to be able to sit in a breakout, sharing the key points being shared, and picking up the same from other breakouts in other parts of Auckland.  I may have gone a little bit critical, with over 200 tweets in four days, but as I picked up 40 new followers I must have been saying something people thought worth listening to.  I just have to make sure I keep it up!

So, after 6 days of meeting with other educators, sharing great ideas and practice, what are my key takeaway ideas?

1. Primary and Intermediate schools started "doing" elearning at the same time as Secondary.  However, with more contact time between students and teachers they have made a lot more progress and gone way past the tools they are using, and now look for how they can improve learning outcomes  using their digital toolboxes.  Secondary needs to catch up to be able to keep developing these students when they arrive at our doors.
2. Google Apps are a far more powerful collaborative tool for our students to use, and I need to get better using them so I can support my teachers.
3. Where possible, since we have Google Apps, we should use this suite of tools for elearning as students already have accounts and the school is able to manage their use.  When students start using alternative blogging sites, portfolios etc then managing the learning environment gets harder.  This is fine if these services have significant advantages, but if they are compatible then using the Google service simplifies management.
4. As we start using more online tools and services, we need to make it easier for students to navigate and access between these them.  This requires a Single Sign On system to ensure that accessing the tools is never a barrier to learning, as we all know how much time can be lost when a student has forgotten the password to this particular system which is different to all the others.
5. Have a go.  If you have an idea on how something could be done differently/better/new, get support from your HoD/Faculty Leader/SMT and go for it.  Nothing ventured nothing gained.  Don't wait until you think it'll be perfect, it'll never happen.

Well, that was a restful break, and I have a few new things to think about going into Term 4.  Let's make a difference out there.