Connected Learning

Jarrod Lamshed

May
19

By

Capturing the Moment

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

This term, I’ve been feeling flat. A feeling of being over committed, and frustrated with time restraints has been a little overwhelming. A ‘not so inspiring’ professional development session last Monday certainly didn’t help. With this on top of all the usual frustrations of a teacher’s life I have not been at my enthusiastic best.  This is not to say that everything has been bad. I am working with a great team of teachers on some innovative and exciting stuff, it’s just been lost in the ‘muddle’ for the last few weeks.

With this lacklustre state of mind I wandered off to my first CEGSA (Computers in Education Group of South Australia) committee meeting on Thursday night and went through the motions of beginning my newest commitment. I can’t say I was feeling enthusiastic at the thought of an after hours meeting, but I had committed so I went along and joined the conversation. After the committee meeting I had the opportunity to attend a ‘spotlight’ session with George Couros. It was the beginning of the rejuvenating process.

George’s session, titled ‘What to Look for in Today’s Classroom’ was energising. As the session progressed and the tweeting began, I began to feel the fog lift. I began to refocus on the exciting parts of the job and recommit to my ongoing list of goals. By the end of the session I had re-established some important connections with people but had also re-established a connection with my job.

Thursday’s session was followed by a full day ‘master class’ with George. At this event I attended as a support person. My role was to support participants as they worked with George to set up their own online professional portfolios linked with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Even though I was there as a troubleshooter, the learning for me was huge and once again I came out inspired with a new list of goals for my teaching and learning as well as that of my students.

 


Now,  I have seen George present on several occasions before (maybe not quite to the extent of a stalker), and each time there is a feeling of excitement in the room. Over both sessions this week, it was clear that this would be no different. I had many conversations with participants at both sessions who ‘got it’. Comments about the quality of the PD sessions were overwhelmingly positive. All of the people I spoke to felt that this was the best and most relevant training session that they had been to in a long time. As I did, people had come away with a drive to take action and make positive change in their classroom and school. 

This week, twitter has been alive with conversation about George’s sessions. Apart from the usual discussion from classroom teachers it has been great to see the discussion from our leaders in DECD head office. It is obvious from the conversation they also ‘get it’ as is evident in this post by Karen Butler of the Digital Learning team in DECD.

All too often, the positivity generated by good professional learning fizzles out because of a focus change in the school or from the department. The ongoing positive change that is being generated here needs to be harnessed. It’s time to capture the moment and give access to this learning to as many people in our schools and department as we can.  There is a movement beginning and with ongoing support and co-operation from supporting organisations like DECD and CEGSA, there is no reason that this learning can’t be ongoing and long lasting.

The learning that George is bringing to us creates connections. Connections that are essential to ongoing improvement and learning in our classrooms and our department. As a new member of the CEGSA committee I feel like I am now part of a group that can work to support this important learning and help to effect much needed change in our schools. Working together, with all parties involved, it’s time to ride the wave and create the movement and change that we need. It provides us a chance to open up learning in our schools and look at new ways to move forward and prepare our students for the skills they need now.

After a rejuvenating week, I’m looking forward to the challenge and to seeing what can be achieved. I hope that others are also inspired and are ready to join me in the conversation.

Nov
11

By

The Battle for Balance

Category: Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , 14 Comments

One of the things I’m struggling with most at the moment is finding balance. The balance between work and home is alway difficult and it’s not something I am doing very well.

Work is a busy place to be right now, in fact it has been all year. As well as my classroom, I am responsible for the school choir, work with our school Kapa Haka group, have been involved in film projects for DECD and AITSL, am on the Personel Advisory Committee (PAC), working with students in the New Media Awards program, and have worked with students to present lectures at UniSA. Being term 4, we are currently writing reports, planning graduation, looking at class placement and planning items for end of year concerts.

I’m not complaining, and I know that I’m certainly not the only teacher with a high workload. In fact, if I had to choose something to cut from my list, I would find it difficult. These are aspects of my work life that make this job something that I love doing.

But it’s a lot.

Home life isn’t much simpler. As foster carers, my wife, kids and I share our home with 2 other children (4 kids in total and until recently, 5). We have had school football, calisthenics, scouts, birthday parties, kids social lives (none of our own!), housework and all of the other things that come with normal family life.

So, with all that makes up our lives, how do we find a better balance? How do I do my job well and be a husband and father that is not only present, but able to give my family my complete focus as they deserve? It’s difficult, but we are giving it a good crack!

Last school holidays I made the decision to switch off, and disappear from work. This meant deleting certain apps from my phone for that time (sorry Twitter) and making a conscious effort to clear my head of the ever growing ‘to do’ list. It was a well timed decision. Until I switched off, I wasn’t really aware of how quickly I was running myself into the ground. I became aware that my kids had been (at times) walking on egg shells around me, and that I couldn’t remember the last time that my wife and I had taken 5 minutes of ‘time out’ for ourselves. At work, I had fallen back into my default mode and was feeling more stress than enjoyment in my job. It was a hard lesson to learn, but a necessary one.

I feel lucky that I have both positive home and work lives and know that for many people this isn’t so. I am definitely doing ‘balance’ better this term. We have ‘do not disturb’ times in place at home and are making the most of every opportunity that we have for some ‘down time’. But there is still room for improvement. If anyone has the magic recipe, I’d love to hear it.

Jul
22

By

Moving with the Times

Category: 6. Engage in professional learning Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

This week gone was our first week back at school for Term 3. I, along with many others who attended the CEGSA 2012 conference, came back to school with a whole heap of new ideas, many of which I wanted to implement with my class on day 1. It did not take long for disappointment to set in.

Over the last few years, with the emergence of so many online tools, we are being encouraged to be creators like never before. Every day, so many great tools are developed that it’s hard to keep up! This is not a bad thing. A lot of these tools are fantastic for engaging kids (and teachers) in learning. Each year I stumble across many new tools that add value classroom learning. The frustrating part comes when I try to put these tools to use.

Unfortunately many (if not most) of these sites are blocked by our Education Department’s website filtering program. The program is designed to filter sites to protect our students from inappropriate content. I get the theory… we don’t want our kids exposed to bad stuff. We know there are some pretty dodgy things on the internet and the kids need to be protected. But is the OVER blocking of sites the best way to protect our kids?

My big problem with this system is that it doesn’t follow the kids home. On home computers our students WILL come across inappropriate internet content at some stage. They need to know what to do when this happens. Blocking PORNOGRAPHY at school is common sense, blocking services like GOOGLE DOCS makes no sense at all. Teaching kids how to close a screen and get an adult is a far better method of protection. Teaching responsible internet use along with adult supervision has to be a better option than blocking anything and everything ‘just in case’. This method means that we can be VERY limited in what we do.

There are some great texts and interactive programs that are available for us to use with our students AND parents to show them how they can protect THEMSELVES. Cyberquoll is one of these programs that have been developed for Australian schools. It recommends ‘sensible’ self protection measures. Using first names only, no personal information, thinking about the photos you upload and the importance of not meeting people you only know from online are some of the topics that are covered. The series is made up of six 10 minute videos that are very child friendly.

If we over block sites at school we have no way to teach kids to protect themselves. As well as this, we spend a ridiculous amount of time requesting sites to be unblocked and then waiting for these requests to be processed. Quite often we then find the same sites re-blocked the next month. This overprotection is at the expense of some valuable learning and access to up to date learning tools.

With a new system rolling out very soon, we can only hope that this process becomes more realistic and manageable.

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