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Does ICT assist learning?

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Derek Wenmoth

View slides on Slideshare: "Students, computers and learning: making the connection" by Andreas Schleicher (OECD)

The latest report from the OECD titled Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection has attracted lots of attention in the past week. The report's main claim is that computers do not improve student results, and news feeds around the world have picked up on this using headlines suggesting school technology struggles to make an impact and  schools are wasting money on computers for kids.

Behind the headlines are revelations that technology in the classroom leads to poorer performance among pupils is that it can be distracting and that syllabuses have not become good enough to take make the most of the technologies available. There are also concerns about plagiarism with concerns that if students can simply copy and paste answers to questions, it is unlikely to help them become smarter.

Such headlines are bound to appeal to the tech sceptics and those calling for 'back to basics' as the panacea to education's woes – but what does this report really tell us? Given the level of investment involved with the use of technology it's certainly not inappropriate to ask whether it makes a difference, but in doing this we need to ask: “Difference in what?"
The OECD researchers found no appreciable improvements in student achievement in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in ICT for education. It adds that the use of technology in schools has done little to bridge the skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students. The report concludes that ensuring that every child reaches a baseline level of proficiency in reading and mathematics seems to do more to create equal opportunities in a digital world than can be achieved by expanding or subsidizing access to high-tech devices and services.

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Ten Trends 2015: Maker Culture

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Mark Osborne

Let me tell you about a little annoyance I have in my life — maybe it’s in yours as well. No matter how carefully I fold them, knot them gently or, carefully place them, my earbud headphones always unravel in my bag and (like a little octopus) wrap themselves around everything in sight. So when I need them, I end up emptying my whole bag just to disentangle them.
Every. Single. Time.

So rather than accepting a future of pulling everything out of my bag when I need my earbuds I chose to do something about. My two options were:

  1. hope someone has created the perfect solution for me (and made it available at a reasonable price) or
  2. take destiny into my own hands, learn a few things and make something myself that solved the problem.

This second option, which taps into human-kind’s innate ability to make tools and solve problems, is at the heart of what’s known as the ‘maker movement’.

Let me give you a bit of background: the maker movement takes advantage of the fact that technology is at the point now where previously industry-level prototyping tools (modelling software, 3D printers, electronics, laser cutters) are now affordable for many schools.  So we literally have the tools available to us to help our kids be inventors.

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Global connectedness and frame of reference

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Pete Sommerville

A few weeks ago students on a LEARNZ field trip were backstage at an opera; last week they were in the Wellington Mayor’s office talking Smart Motorways. Next week they’ll be searching for kea nests in the Southern Alps. All LEARNZ field trips are journeys to the unfamiliar.

Travelling to Antarctica is another step-up in unfamiliarity. Inside Scott Base life is mostly familiar; but outside presents a new normal. It’s common to see people walking and skiing at one o’clock in the morning. For students and us, it’s a new frame of reference.

Right now Shelley and I are preparing for an Antarctic science virtual field trip. Students on this trip will join a NIWA science team trying to find out why sea ice in Antarctica is increasing while it is disappearing in the Arctic.

Mt Erebus
Mt Erebus in the far distance from Hut Point Peninsula, framed by the Ross Ice Shelf on the far right, and sea ice on McMurdo Sound on the far left.

An opportunity to learn about frames of reference

In guiding student learning to prepare for this virtual journey, we are exploring ideas around frames of reference. The things that make us what and who we are and give us our point of view define our frame of reference. Our reality. One person’s reality may be very different from another.

Two people stand facing each other on either side of a street. A car drives past. One person sees the car moving to the right. The other person sees the car moving to the left. Two different frames of reference; two different observations. Our frame of reference determines how we see and understand the world. It’s influenced by our geographic location, who we live with, our beliefs, our education, our culture.

Our frame of reference can limit our ability to understand issues and to think critically. Part of a picture only tells part of a story; what you see is not always what you get.

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Let’s get talking … cross-sector

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Tara Fagan

conversation

Photo: Serge Melki (Flickr under CC)

As we think about innovative learning environments and future focused education, it is time to look beyond the confines of our own educational setting, eg our own classroom, schools, kura, centres and community. We can benefit more by looking across the sectors where we can, learn from the wider field of education and strengthen professional relationships.

We have lessons to learn from each other, ways that will help us pull the best aspects of education together. Through connection and collaboration we will understand more about the learners we work with; the conversations that we engage in can contribute to a seamless education for each of our learners.

An example of this is the exchange of ideas on topics such as maker movement, collaborative teaching, and project-based learning. In a quality early childhood setting, these are often embedded practice. Early childhood teachers collaboratively plan, develop curriculum, and teach together every day with each teacher’s practice being openly shared. They teach in flexible learning environments providing spaces for group work, thinking space, project space, and space for children to be able to create and make. The learning environment is seen as the ‘third teacher’, with considerable thought and planning by the teachers to ensure it is a dynamic learning place. It is this playful exploration, creating, tinkering, and making that forms a key part of the early childhood curriculum. Teaching and learning in this environment might look different to that in a school or kura, but the practices are just as pedagogically sound, designed to support young children’s active exploration and learning. As the school sector considers how the maker movement and collaborative teaching fits within the curriculum, it seems timely that we talk with each other, develop shared understanding, rhetoric, and grow our own practice.
 

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In our past is our destiny

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Phoebe Davis

MoerewaPhotograph by Shirley Williams (from Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand under CC License)

We are defined by our narratives, and our narratives can shape our way forward — to our future, and to our success. Helen Baker, Principal of Te Kura o Takaro, says,

“It’s not someone else’s story that we’ve captured. It’s our own story and that to me is where the strength of any Marau ā‐kura/Localised Curriculum is … that it is yours, it’s your school’s story, your people’s story … So that lives on … past any of us here and live in the hearts and minds of people which is where you really make change”  
(Baker Pakiwaitara-Marau 2013)

Helena Baker highlights our stories and emphasises that our history needs to be reflected in our Marau ā-Kura/Localised Curriculum, so that students can see their history, and their stories in their learning, and in their curriculum.

I would like to share with you, as an example, our story, and how it shapes our Marauā-Kura/Localised Curriculum.

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