How will schools educate for Science2.0? April 22, 2008
Posted by Gilmour David in : A Curriculum for Excellence, ICT Benefits, Peer assessment, Schools ICT, information literacy , add a commentLooks like Web2.0 is now impacting science in radical ways. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about recording those experiments on-line, and not just in private jotters? Via Slashdot:
Scientific American is running a major article on Science 2.0, or the use of Web 2.0 applications and techniques by scientists to collaborate and publish in new ways. “Under [the] radically transparent ‘open notebook’ approach, everything goes online: experimental protocols, successful outcomes, failed attempts, even discussions of papers being prepared for publication… The time stamps on every entry not only establish priority but allow anyone to track the contributions of every person, even in a large collaboration.” One project profiled is MIT’s OpenWetWare, launched in 2005. The wiki-based project now encompasses more than 6,100 Web pages edited by 3,000 registered users. Last year the NSF awarded OpenWetWare a 5-year grant to “transform the platform into a self-sustaining community independent of its current base at MIT… the grant will also support creation of a generic version of OpenWetWare that other research communities can use.” The article also gives air time to Science 2.0 skeptics. “It’s so antithetical to the way scientists are trained,” one Duke University geneticist said, though he eventually became a convert.
New OECD tests on adult workforce will focus on ICT skills March 20, 2008
Posted by Gilmour David in : A Curriculum for Excellence, ICT Benefits, Personal Learning Plans, Schools ICT, eduBuzz, information literacy, synch test , add a commentOECD, the people who run the PISA tests of international student attainment, are now planning to test the skills of adults in today’s work environment. And look what’s a core objective:
One of PIAAC’s core objectives will be to assess how well participants use ICT to access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, construct new knowledge, and communicate with other people.
Not so long ago, the emphasis would have been on the technology, and whether or not people could drive them. Nerds would have done well. Schools could have concentrated on how to use applications.
Now, we’ve moved up the value chain, and the time of the social geek micro-trend documented by Mark Penn. The recent decision in East Lothian to provide every student with their own on-line learning space looks even more like the right move.
Every child will have an on-line space in which they can keep a record of their experiences and achievements that will track through with them from the age of 3 - 18, - Perhaps even from birth where they reflect upon their learning, their experiences and achievements.
DEMOS identifies teacher need for more professional dialogue and reflection May 30, 2007
Posted by Gilmour David in : ICT Benefits, blogging, eduBuzz , 1 comment so farA new 28-page DEMOS report, DIY Professionalism, looks at the future of teaching and identifies a need for more space for professional dialogue and reflection. Perhaps what we’re seeing with educational blogging is that latent demand finding an outlet, enabled by the emergence of easy-to-use blogging tools?
DEMOS don’t consider the role technology might play, preferring instead to make analogies with water-cooler conversations.
The water-cooler has become a powerful metaphor as a central junction box in the hidden wiring of workplace conversations. It’s where events’ real significance is worked out. To support the skills and confidence DIY professionalism demands of staff and to connect up their experiments with professional roles and protocols,teaching needs more of these kinds of conversations.Conversations around the water-cooler require three things; a place to meet and talk (the cooler), shared experiences and rituals to talk about (an un-missable television programme, the Christmas party) and a sense of connection and recognition. As we have seen, teachers today lack something of all three. The focus of school reform on the ‘what and how’ of delivery has limited spaces for professional dialogue and reflection. (DIY Professionalism, John Craig and Catherine Fieschi, May 2007 Page 25, link )
Educational blogging can clearly enable these conversations in a way that meets some of the DEMOS requirements:
- a place to meet and talk
- shared experiences and rituals
- a sense of connection and recognition
The report includes many useful proposals that could help with development of our on-line community in East Lothian.
In class, I have to power down May 9, 2007
Posted by Gilmour David in : A Curriculum for Excellence, Exc-el, ICT Benefits, Research, Schools ICT, Student blogging, books, social software , 1 comment so farDavid Puttnam, in today’s Guardian Education asks why it is, despite children having been quick to grasp the joys of new technology, schools are lagging so far behind.
At a recent digital education conference in San Francisco, one of the more memorable remarks quoted came from a child: “Whenever I go into class, I have to power down.” That roughly translates as: “What I do with digital technology outside school - at home, in my own free time - is on a completely different level to what I’m able to do at school. Outside school, I’m using much more advanced skills, doing many more interesting things, operating in a far more sophisticated way. School takes little notice of this and seems not to care.”
He refers to a recent Demos report, Their Space (81 pages, pdf). This report, supported by the National College for School Leadership, includes a whole range of ideas that could help inform eduBuzz developments, for example this from Chapter 4 , “Start with People not PCs, How schools can shift investment”:
This chapter has laid out a set of changes that when taken together add up to a shift in values: a shift in terms of the kind of investment that is needed to reach the potential for change in the system, and a shift in terms of the kinds of skills, experiences and relationships that schools value. Shifting schools’ value systems in this way will create more meaningful learning experiences for young people, and also more active and engaged learners. It will also enable schools to reconnect the currently disparate parts of young peoples’ lives – in school and out of school – and enable them to transfer knowledge and skills across a whole range of experiences. But finally it is important because by building on young peoples’ interests and enthusiasms, and doing it in ways that are going with the grain of their lives, schools will succeed in effectively providing all young people with a set of tools that they can use far beyond their formal learning experience.
Carronvale eduBuzzers win Silver at Falkirk ICT Fair April 29, 2007
Posted by Gilmour David in : ICT Benefits, eduBuzz, social software , 1 comment so far8 Carronvale Primary students who attended Falkirk Council’s Education ICT Fair this week have won a Silver award for their P7 class blogs. Of course, they’ve blogged it: you can read the details in posts from Danni, Nicola, Lisa and Rebecca; there are some photos on their class blog too.
Their individual blogs are hosted on eduBuzz as part of our efforts to share what we’re learning with other authorities. It’s working the other way, too, as these blogs are providing us with great practical examples of how individual blogs can be used effectively with P7 students.
The ICT Fair Press Release includes this quote from Julia Swan, Falkirk’s Education Director:
We are seeing the growing use of ICT in the classroom and pupils are responding very positively to developments. Feedback from teachers shows that pupils are generally more eager to participate as they use the ICT equipment to engage with learning.
Many staff have reported that they have found attainment rises the more pupils are involved in using ICT in the learning process and suggests that this is an area in which we will be prioritising our resources.
This anecdotal evidence is consistent with HMI’s recent ICT in Learning and Teaching report, which reported that: “In primary schools, progress in particular aspects of learning was linked to effective use of ICT”. It’s interesting to see this now reaching the stage where it’s leading to the prioritising of resources, despite the apparent absence of systematic studies. If such increased resourcing of ICT is to be sustained, it’s going to be important to improve our knowledge of where exactly the potential benefits lie.
