I do not propose to comment on my employer’s policies or my union’s response.

Educators must focus on what is truly important for our communities. Quite simply, our priorities should be:

1. reforming the HSC and re-designing how students demonstrate their learning, understandings and skills

2. professionally developing educators to support students to ‘learn how to learn’

3. authentically educating students about their democracy and civil society

4. re-designing learning spaces and structures, including the virtual and online, to better reflect contemporary needs and technological advances

5. encouraging genuine independence, innovation and risk-taking for schools including the freedom to design local, or access international, curriculum

Who agrees?

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

My pre-conference survey elicited a number of interesting responses. I have been collecting this kind of data for 4-5 years now and something is changing. Teacher-Librarians, in my previous experience, were resisting the inevitable changes wrought by the internet/WWW. No longer:

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

In our conversations over morning tea a number of questions were posed and resources requested. Here’s some links, in response to questions, that delegates may find useful if they experience a (hopefully inevitable) burst of post-conference enthusiasm:

• Join the social bookmarking site Diigo or check out all my tags, especially for digital citizenship.
• Twitter is my favourite professional (and personal) learning tool. Find out more about Twitter hashtags, metadata and the concept of a folksonomy.
• Many people wanted to know more about how to link their iPad Kindle app with Twitter and Facebook. Read this.
• Read instructions for mirroring your iPad for presentations.
• Try Reeder for RSS feeds after setting up Google Reader
• Thinking about family history and digital footprints?
• Here are two (part one and part two) other presentations to Teacher-Librarians from 2011
• Try my social media page for videos and tips
• Kids who read succeed
• The videos for Infowhelm, Project Glass and Twitter Love Song

Re-designing libraries

I should also say that Kevin Hennah impressed me greatly today with his ideas about library design. Kevin has a very polished, thoughtful presentation style. In fact, he exudes ‘clever’. He certainly gave delegates ideas on how to manage the principal, as well as their libraries.

Check out Kevin’s thoughts about re-designing library spaces and try Limejuice, if you are looking for savvy graphic design, especially in the process of making your library signage an impressive aspect of the change process.

While Kevin was talking a thought came to mind about the ancient, lost library at Alexandria. This library had no ‘books’ but contained papyrus and parchment scrolls. We have much societal change taking place but ‘the library’ must continue if our civil society is to be maintained and extended. Libraries symbolise culture and knowledge. Librarians are the guides that help students and citizens to access this knowledge, at school and in the community.

Updating?

I’d just like to conclude with a reminder to the delegates, or any other teacher-librarians reading, about that collective noun mentioned. A ‘catalogue’ of (teacher) librarians just seems like it needs updating.

What collective noun would you suggest to represent an evolving and savvy profession?

Today’s information technologies provide instantaneous access to vast amounts of information, opening up wondrous new possibilities in education, commerce, and entertainment. But these opportunities are not without cost: the easy availability of information can turn into information overload; the presence of multiple communication sources and devices may lead to the fragmentation of attention; and the ease of acting and communicating quickly seems to encourage a pace of interaction that is unsustainable and counterproductive.

                                        from Professor David Levy‘s Information and Contemplation course

The content of a  tweet from Howard Rheingold posits ideas many of us, who have been advocating for the vastly increased use of technology in education, have been reflecting on for a while now. In a word, balance.

What courses does your school run that effectively assist students to manage contemporary life?

Schools have a range of lessons in an array of subjects that deal with personal well-being, health and even digital citizenship. However, I wonder what is available for students that is contemplative, in the way Levy is advocating for his tertiary students?

Of course, there are what Celia Lashlie calls ’30-second moments’ that are important at school for students and teachers. Some of those moments develop into ongoing mentoring and advice. I have seen many students over the years return to see their teachers, long after graduating from school, such was the importance of the bond.

Recently, a student experiencing grieving and loss came to my office about her struggles coping at school. She was undergoing counselling but was feeling helpless in the face of modern life. Wherever she looked there were reminders of her sadness. Friends being kind on Facebook, text messages, photos and just an overwhelming sense of loss that was manifesting itself physically. We all understand what she meant about her anxiety becoming physical and I recommended some simple breathing techniques, discovered via teaching and using Yoga Nidra for a decade with classes (as much to assist with creative writing as anything else).

After chatting with her parent, who I sought permission from to support her daughter further with this method, the student is now using this technique regularly. My experience is that students love this practical process and find it useful in some unexpected ways. Kids who love skateboarding and surfing have been particularly enthusiastic about the creative visualisations of their sport that they can engage while meditating.

What does your school do to encourage balance?

Our students are encouraged to drink water, eat a healthy breakfast and sleep 9 hours each night. We run a breakfast club. The school, especially the principal and deputies, are quite obsessive about this message. A few years ago we discovered that more students in Year 11 had missed breakfast before an exam than eaten something healthy.

Our school advises parents to charge digital devices in a central location and to limit screens in bedrooms to ensure proper sleep. We have discovered that over 90% of students who are suspended from school have missed breakfast or never eat it. We address this issue directly with parents and the student.

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by lydia chow

The future?

The explicit teaching of maintaining life balance and the importance of seeking our human tradition of wisdom, across a range of disciplines, is as important as it has always been. Maybe more important in a world that is 24-7!

What courses does your school run that effectively assist students to manage life? What courses would you like to run?

It is important that all of us, including this blogger, reflect and act positively to ensure we strike a good balance in life.

You can listen to more of Professor Levy’s ideas about wisdom here (2008).

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

For example, Sarah (5) is fantastic at mixing using Groove Maker. One cold, autumnal morning in Mudgee, while processing photos, without me even realising it, I was carried away by the music. She really had her groove on. Lucy (8) even commented, ‘that is cool, Sarah’!

I suspect it is a perfect example of being in the ‘flow‘.

Another example, using a different language to create, is her storytelling later that day. Sarah loves Artmaker and it was pretty much the first app she used on the iPad. It is simple and allows for story to not be impeded by technical difficulties while making the film. Listening to her stories in the back of the car, as she used the app, was joy. She was lost in a world of her own device.

Once again, time and creativity go hand in hand. It seems to me that this is learning and that more time should be allowed in school for students to freely explore!

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive…

Wordsworth

Wandering, with my camera at dawn, is the time when I feel most creative and clear-minded. I certainly find, as the sun’s rays creep above the horizon, that my thoughts are consumed by the shot and I feel in the flow. Often, just after that, walking, my mind seems most alive and ideas, sometimes from years ago, are viewed afresh. New ideas emerge and recent thoughts coalesce.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

Photography is a useful tool.

                                                                      Degas

Michael Forster has recently moved to Mudgee and his works are being exhibited at the Fairview Artspace. Helen Harwood was kind enough to invite my family to attend the opening. We looked at Michael’s art and listened to him explain his processes of making his ‘transpositions from live or imagined images to traditional art mediums and back to the digital palette.” I chatted with him and liked what he had to say about using his ‘camera as a sketchpad’. Michael has no reservations about using technology in his art and gushed about Photoshop.

While looking at approximately 30 of Forster’s pieces we played a game. Each girl, before looking at the title, had to name the art work. It was truly engaging for all of us and certainly made my daughters inspect each work very closely. Later in the evening, as the lights were dimmed and a poem read aloud, I could see their eyes shining in the candlelight.

Michael’s work and ideas have certainly got me thinking about my photography and what else may be possible. Many of his ideas are instinctively, naturally how I see the world. My fledgling attempts may be more often ‘printed’ as a result of Michael’s influence.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

I know both girls were rapt with this experience too, as on arrival home, they started drawing, even though it was well after bedtime.

They also liked the canapes.

Slider image: cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo by Darcy Moore: http://flickr.com/photos/darcymoore/6920744948/

The purpose of this book is to fill in some of the gaps of this historical amnesia, by giving an account of where basic political institutions came from in societies that now take them for granted. The three categories of institutions in question are the ones just described: 1. the state 2. the rule of law 3. accountable government. A successful modern liberal democracy combines all three sets of institutions in a stable balance.

Enamoured with the importance of the ideas explored in The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution by Francis Fukuyama, for our contemporary democracies, I read it twice. Actually, I listened to a superbly narrated Audible version, by the almost peerless Jonathan Davis, before reading it on my iPad and enthusiatically tweeting quotes.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

Fukuyama is most famous for his essay (and subsequent book), ‘The End of History’ but I suspect that this current tome is much more intellectually important and will stand the test of time.  There is much available online re: Fukuyama’s very public rejection of neo-conservatism, for those unfamiliar with his work and influence, that makes for interesting reading, including this article he wrote in 2006.

In a period where Western liberal democracies are having difficulty maintaining credibility with voters, Fukuyama offers clarity. Citizens perceive that powerful vested interests blatantly manipulate, supposedly data-driven decision-making, at the highest levels, in ways that are fundamentally undemocratic. This perception grew to be irrefutable after the GFC as the wealthiest, often most responsible for the crisis, suffered little while even more children (an estimated and staggering 21% of America’s youngest) fell into poverty.

This current book lucidly explains the challenges that our democracy has in maintaining rule of law for all, especially when the most powerful do not have society’s best interests at the heart of their philosophy (of course, this has always historically been the case). Fukuyama shows us, with concise and successful comparative history, how previous generations managed to establish what we now ‘take for granted’ in our democracies. In the process he illuminates Now.

Particularly interesting is Fukuyama’s descriptions of ‘patrimonialism’:

Moreover, the natural human propensity to favor family and friends—something I refer to as patrimonialism—constantly reasserts itself in the absence of strong countervailing incentives. Organized groups—most often the rich and powerful—entrench themselves over time and begin demanding privileges from the state. Particularly when a prolonged period of peace and stability gives way to financial and/or military crisis, these entrenched patrimonial groups extend their sway, or else prevent the state from responding adequately.

This OECD (2011) data and analysis confirms what many see clearly in the Australian educational landscape, rising inequality and entrenched interests overcoming the greater good. The Gonski review may have recommended $5 billion worth of ‘catch-up’ for education, most of it to the underfunded public sector, but many believe the chances of the money being invested prior to the next federal election to be highly unlikely.

Patrimonialism in Australian society is rarely discussed. Occasionally one reads about the perceptions that an emerging ‘political class’ have their own insular and vested interests to protect. I think most of us would say the ‘a fair go’ ethos of the country is best supported with properly funding education and preventing schools from being buffeted unfairly by market-based philosophies. The next 18 months will show which way the wind blows.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution should be a primer for all politicians and those charged with civil responsibilities.

Hold on, that’s all of us.

Fukuyama is on Facebook and Twitter

Reading has always been a solitary pursuit – by definition – in my mind. I never sought membership of any kind of club that met to discuss books. The idea of attending a ‘festival’ to listen to an author, or ask them questions, seemed a little silly. Surely their thoughts and insights, knowledge and work was best approached by sitting, alone, with their prose.

My attitudes are changing…have changed!

Social media allows us to share our reading with ‘followers’ and friends; we can interact with authors (in lieu of attending literary events). Twitter is awash with writers willing to be social (and help students/teachers). One wonders how they get anything written in some cases

The concept of ‘social reading’ was not so clear to me when it was first discussed a few years back. I did understand what Jeremy LeBard (what an excellent surname he has) was getting at with ReadCloud, especially in a school context but wondered if it would catch on or not. Now, that I am reading books almost exclusively via my iPad, social reading is becoming more clearly a concept that will develop as more people start to engage with ebooks.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

This is how it works. The iPad Kindle app allows you to highlight and share an interesting quote via Facebook or Twitter. This then becomes a record of highlights from the book. I am finding the process easy and enjoyable. If you are a Twitter enthusiast, it is a very natural thing to do.

I have been using Shelfari to keep a record of my reading via a ‘bookshelf’ on my blog for a while now. I enjoy seeing what other people are reading and often this kind of shelf, at blogs I frequent, provides great book tips.

Has your reading become ‘social’? Are you determined to resist this ‘fad’? Thoughts?

Rebecca Fernandez spoke about her journey towards making a living as a game designer. Rebecca’s mother is an ex-student of our school and the boys could relate to the experiences of a local person in achieving her goals. The boys listened politely and some were very enthused and asked good questions. Often, Rebecca talked about her own learning and the necessity of ‘teaching herself’. As you may know, Year 10 named their blog The Republic (of learning how to learn) and this is a major focus of our ongoing class discourse about the nature of learning.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

Rebecca’s explanation of how they crowdsourcing Convict Interactive’s latest project was also very interesting to the boys designing their own games using the Unity 3D engine. The contemporary world, live. I loved it!

Our last presenter ‘skyped’ in and this led to a range of really good discussions in class (and amongst colleagues). It is important that schools engage with the ‘outside world’ and guests like Rebecca are an invaluable source of authenticity, engagement and motivation.It makes school more real!

Here’s Rebecca’s PowerPoint journey:

Do you have guest speakers enthusing and motivating your students?

 

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore 

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore

What’s on myPad?

My teaching career commenced 0ver 20 years ago at a ‘Mac school’ but it wasn’t until investing in an iPod, like so may other people in 2002, that Apple regularly received my hard-earned cash. The Macbook Pro, iPhone, iPad and a host of other accessories are now part of my daily routines. In future, the iPad is more likely to be whipped out at a conference than my laptop or phone, if there is wifi (as I did not fancy paying for the non-existent 4G option in Australia).

This weekend I used myPad to read books via the Kindle app. Reading, once a solitary pursuit, has become social, if you wish it to be. I love how one can highlight a passage and tweet it for fun, potentially developing connections with folks sharing similar interests, as well as ‘pushing’ ideas one supports. The updated Kindle app is much sharper and I noted, with great pleasure, that not only does it show what percentage of the book one has read but also shows the PAGE NO too. Until this weekend, I’d say to my partner, re: a book we were both reading, with great dissatisfaction, what percentage have you read?

I like how I can be reading and answer a ‘tweet’ or ‘yam‘. This morning I was reading, Mum phoned, using Skype and the much-improved app allowed her to see her grandchildren. The original iPad Skype app was only audio.

Browsing the web is much improved (faster and sharper) using the latest iPad apps. Reeder is a must for RSS feeds. This is the first time I have really used it on an iPad and it is a stunningly usable app for feeds. I had a massive backlog of posts to peruse and really found reading them very easy. The Diigo app and browser (formerly iChromy) are essential tools too. The SMH app is brilliant!

ABC iView, Pocket Weather, Dropbox, iTunesU, TED, Facebook, Edmodo, Google+, Shazam and the Australian Oxford Dictionary grace my home screen. Evernote, Analytics HD, Ego, Google Earth, Lynda.com, Aust. Curric., GoodReader, Kobo, iCurrencyPad, TripAdvisor, Google Translate, Alice, iPhoto and the Prezi Viewer are some of the key apps that grace later pages.

Home screen

Apple is celebrated and maligned for many oft commented on reasons. No links required. The ‘one ring to rule them all’ analogy has been used any times in relation to the iPad (and Apple) for both positive and critical commentary. The latest iPad is a distinctly improved tablet on the original incarnation. It is faster, sharper and the apps are just so much better than the original versions I used two years ago for the first time. I am able to use the iPad for everything I am likely to do on the weekend, or after work. It is much closer to being the one device to rule them all IMHO.

NB I have still written this post on my Macbook Pro, even though I did consider the benefits of using the tool I am posting about. Maybe next post.

How are you using your iPad?

I am taking bets on how long it remains ‘my iPad’. Miss 8 is starting to lurk, asking polite questions about the ‘differences’ between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ iPads!

BTW Here’s my post about my daughters’ responses to the iPhone back in 2008.

UPDATE: The iCloud synching is very impressive and has massive potential while travelling and for backups. I also forgot to mention how cool the ‘dictation’ feature is, in fact, I actually let Miss 5 and 8 play with that from afar

This is not about people in the system but the system itself.

It is difficult to know how the current controversies, the numerous proposed changes in the way education is organised in NSW and Australia, will impact on the next generation of children. A national curriculum, new funding arrangements for schools, the impact of technology on learning, state v federal agenda, proposed new operating paradigms for state schools and the very nature of schooling itself all jostle in a highly politicised (and unstable) landscape.

It concerns me that so little of the conversation is about the realities of teaching and learning in classrooms or how our changed societal paradigms need to be reflected in the ways we educate the young (and all our citizens). Students will still file into examination halls to do pen and paper tests. Most students in our schools will not have a personal device that connects to the internet. Old fashioned, often out-of-date school reports will be sent home each semester. We measure and collect data to be used in the most dubious of ways and our system appears, to many, to be reproducing disadvantage rather than providing genuinely egalitarian opportunity to the many.

There have been many discussions at school and online recently where I find myself playing devil’s advocate, in a range of very different contexts, more in order to stretch my own increasingly uncertain thinking about these challenges for educators, than through any certainty of what is the correct course of action. Yeats’ lines:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity

come quickly to mind as the ground beneath our feet is very unknowable and likely to change rapidly.  Do changes, whatever they may be, merely mean more of the scourge of managerialism, that John Ralston Saul articulated in the mid-90s and in a later defence of public education? Or, will genuine innovation be possible in a potential environment of performance pay and high stakes testing?

My last post asks people to imagine what they would do in the field of education if they could start from scratch. How could schooling, or to my way of thinking, learning, be re-imagined? I asked, ‘what is the aim of the system’?

Here’s my most concise answer:

1. extend our civil society and strengthen democracy
2. enable our young citizens to learn how to learn

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Joe Plocki (turbojoe)

What should be the aims of our system?

“What is a system? A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system. The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.

The first step is clarification: everyone in the organization must understand the aim of the system, and how to direct (their) efforts toward it.

 A system cannot understand itself.

Responsible for the quotes above, Dr Deming (1900-1993) seems to be undergoing something of a revival in the blogosphere at the moment and after viewing several of his videos, I can see why (you do need to give the videos a little time, they feel very dated but the advice is sage). Please read his wikipedia page before viewing – ‘A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers‘ and ‘Five Management Diseases’ - below.

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Hat tip: @suifaijohnmak for these videos

THE BIG PICTURE view of what our education systems must do to revitalise is what we are missing at the moment. We need vision and leadership and a narrative that resounds.

The horizon needs a beacon!

The Melbourne Declaration (note how few of the education ministers who signed the document in 2008 remain or their senior bureaucrats) does talk about civil society but learning how to learn needs to stride to centre stage if each student, growing into citizenship, is to participate in growing our democracy and solving the challenges that feel more today than tomorrow.

Which leaders are talking about learning how to learn as the central aim of the education system?

Dr Deming and Dr Russell Ackoff make several sage points that we all need to consider, especially the most senior political and educational leaders responsible for lighting the way:

1. “Management’s job. It is management’s job to direct the efforts of all components toward the aim of the system.” What is the aim of the system? Do we want to ‘produce a group of people who have been thinking in a way we have been thinking for years’? How can we design a system that equips students (and their teachers) with the ability to ‘learn how to learn‘?

2. If the education system was destroyed last night…what would you do? The point being made, if we do not know what should be done starting from scratch, how can we improve when such freedom does not exist?

3. The comment about ‘institutionalising dysfunctionality’ resounds with many, especially in regards to our systems, across the western world, of pen and paper exams that test knowledge regurgitation. More of the same is not the answer.

If the education system was destroyed last night…what would you do?

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by MyLittleFinger