Posts Tagged "PLN"
"What NO INTERNET?"
Last week I attended the BEA (Business Educators Australasia) Conference, the conference was really good. It’s always interesting to see conferences for various subject areas and the information you can gather. In a previous life I was a business teacher and it’s nice to network with teachers who have brilliant ideas in the teaching of business and any subject for that matter. In my new life I am at the conference as I’m one of their technology speakers. When I agreed to speak I asked if there would be internet access for delegates as this would form part of my presentation. I was assured there was. I asked if delegates would have their own computers and was shocked to hear that they would have access only through the computers offered during my session. But at least they would have a computer. I asked if I could use my own computer and would I have access to internet while at the conference. Yes we have wireless available for presenters. Awesome I would still have net access. However as I discovered when I arrived at the conference the access was only available during my presentation. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Maybe I’ve been spoilt at the conferences I’ve attended in the past but in 2010 is it really acceptable not to offer net access to all your delegates? Especially a business educators conference when we are offering strands in incorporating technology? I have to admit three days without internet access has been hard and I feel very disconnected from the world and my PLN.
Missed you all!!
@MrsAngell
Read MoreWhat Exactly is the Purpose of Education?
This week I have spent my time in primary school planning meetings. Each of these has started the same way with the teachers being given a copy of the draft National Australian Curriculum. Each of these meetings has then gone in a very different direction depending on the combination of teachers. One thing that did stand out is that the teaching staff got caught up with the content of the Australian Curriculum and how the content was different from what they currently taught.
Something which has stood out to me is the severe lack of skills being taught in the National Australian Curriculum. And the swift way in which teachers (myself included) seemed to throw the thought of teaching students skills out the window.
I was reading Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum tonight and it got me thinking about what exactly the purpose of school and education is? What do we take from school into the big bad world when we leave the gate at the end of year 12? What do we take from school into university? And then our degrees into our job? So as I always do when I start thinking I ask Twitterland!
What is your clearest memory of primary school? High school? University?
My clearest memory of primary school was as a whole class (year 3) being praised for being proactive and going into the classroom after first break everyday and reading while we waited for the teachers to return from their morning tea meeting. Then on the sixth day of doing this scoring a lunchtime rubbish clean up (the whole class did) for going into a classroom without a staff member.
For High School the memory is of me making a fool of myself dancing to Rip Rip Woodchip by John Williamson in Year 8 to explain the meaning of logging. (I doubt I got the meaning across but it was fun even if it was embarrassing!)
Meanwhile in University my memories are of me trying to get my readings complete with one or two children hanging off me.
None of this was about the content or even the skills I learnt at school.
So I asked my twitter friends. And their responses were the same. They were about fights, arguments, results, excursions, bullying, parties, punishments and handing the last piece of assessment in. Nothing about content or skills.
So WHY as teachers do we get so hung up on the content? Reality is none of us really remember it later in life.
We should be teaching skills. Lets throw the content out that window instead.
Who’s joining me?
Read MoreTo Share or Not To Share? Is it really a question?
- Image by 姒儿喵喵 via Flickr
I have been teaching for 6 years plus my 7 years of study (yes I know I took my time!) and during this time I have created many resources. During my second year of uni as I stayed up late one evening trying to find a better way to teach an economic concept as every uni student does I turned to Mr Google. I was struggling and I figured that many teachers before me had taught this concept I should be able to find something. Did I find it? You guessed it I found nothing.
Why as teachers do we constantly reinvent the wheel? Why when we all teach from similar syllabi’s and courses do we not share our resources? How much time would we save?
Ever since my evening with Mr Google I have openly shared my resources figuring that what goes round must come round and the resources will eventually be shared back with me. It has taken 10 years for something to return. When I first started teaching in the classroom other teachers didn’t understand why I was sharing my hard work. Why was I making them look better by doing all the work? My response was quite simply we are all teaching the same skills and content why are we wasting precious time creating the same resources? Slowly my colleagues have come around.
Over the last few years with the take off of PLNs through platforms like Facebook and Twitter the sharing has become prolific. You find something useful you share it. So why are some educators still too scared to share?
In the age of social networking and content creation (Web 2.0) there is no question. Everything we create as educators should be shared no matter how small or insignificant we think it is.
The answer is To Share.
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