“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
Something happened to me this week. I was lucky enough to go with a crack team of fellow educators to visit some standout schools in Victoria.
I thought I ‘got’ Transformational Learning before then. I can see now I didn’t. I thought I knew that through innovative use of ICT that I was doing what I needed to do and that I was automatically doing what I needed to do.
I wasn’t.
What I learnt this week was something interesting. I learnt that:
- ICT supports eLearning
- eLearning supports Transformational Learning
- Transformational Learning requires then eLearning and the Curriculum
Graphically, maybe it goes like this:
As the HOD of the ICT Faculty – it was easy to say that ICT = eLearning = Transformational Learning. It doesn’t. It requires additional features. It requires the Curriculum, the Ways of Working, and the Literacy/Numeracy skills to get the job done. Most of all, it requires the Learner to be in the middle of all of this.
I have learnt that Transformational Learning is about the Student/Learner being at the centre of this Teaching and Learning process. The role of ‘Teaching’ in this T&L process is still important, but drops into the background as the Learner begins to own, engage and understand their own Learning.
Why does it need to be done differently? From looking at education as purely a business model, our clients aren’t happy. Our clients have changed from assuming they will be force-fed, to questioning everything (including authority). Our clients have changed from being groomed to one specific career option, to having many (see Shift Happens/Did You Know?).
What I need to do now, is to gather formal data, formal research to be able to make a sales pitch to the school. I think I have made the sales pitch to myself (I can’t stop thinking about the whole thing since I got back on Thursday night).
An important person I bounce ideas off, and help me get the job done, is Kate Wallace – she has had an awakening too – on Friday afternoon we started building a mindmap of understandings and that we don’t need to develop a Vision for eLearning, but a Vision for Learning – the eLearning part of it is only a fraction.
I’ve embedded this MindMap of what we have done so far, and will continue to update it.
People that need acknowledging for helping rewire my understanding:
I’m also now I have written down my ideas, that I can stop thinking about it for a day or two and enjoy the weekend. I am going to try to unpack what I have written down in the MindMap. Some points that resonate:
- Transformational Learning requires a rebirth of what is being done – not a repackaging.
- eLearning demands an ‘e’. The ICT provides the e. A lack of ICT does not result in no transformation however.
Falling further in love with my iPad. Trying not to.
OneNote / MobileNoter
I have always had a respectful affair with OneNote. It allows you to keep on top of massive amounts of information, but only if you are dedicated to using it. Its a great application with a tablet – but I never seem to have one available for use with it. I persevere. What has made me very interested in the product is the academic plugin, and the upcoming 1:1 agenda for schools – and how that fits into my school’s requirements.
I needed to be able to access my OneNote notebooks from my iPad – and I’ve been playing around with an application which might just do it. MobileNoter. It syncs the content of your selected notebooks via WiFi, and does a pretty good job. It also supports the recording/embedding of audio (think podcast you make for your students) and automatically transfers it to the right page and location – including notes you may have taken. Im going to play with it more. I just wish the iPad had a camera (or does it)
check out…
Camera for iPad
This fancy little product allows you to take a picture using your iPhone and beam it directly to your iPad. Where I see great value of it is during meetings where you may need to take a photo of minutes of a meeting, a photo of something being worked on for a project – or even just examples of student work. With the same application open on the iPad (99c US) – and the iPhone. You don’t need to actually pay for it twice and it works pretty well; supporting BlueTooth and WiFi.
I’ll keep playing.
Just when you thought you had enough twittering.
INQ have brought out their response to the social phenomenon – the INQ Mini
I have to constantly straddle the security vs the practicality restrictions with students using school owned devices. Software restrictions, account and filesystem permissions all constantly ensure that ones time is often spent trying to circumvent the security you put in place yourself.
Enter Portable Apps
Portable apps are applications which can run entirely without installation. They range from pirated versions of Office and Adobe CS4, through to open-source ported solutions like OpenOffice. OpenOffice is an excellent ‘thing’ to have around when dealing with students work. It will open almost any file that you need, from the pesky MS Works files, through to the old school WordPerfect.
Very handy!
Edutopia by The George Lucas (yes, of StarWars fame) Educational Foundation has an excellent resource about the Top 10 tips for working/teaching with New Media.
Briefly summarised, these are:
- Break the Digital Ice
- Use Web 2.0 solutions like VoiceThread to get better aquainted with your students.
- Find Your Classroom Experts
- Take advantage of your student’s technical KnowHow – ask your learners, who is doing what in their spare time with technology?
- Get Off to a Good Start
- At the beginning of the year, use Web 2.0 tools to help students better manage their own learning.
- Think Globally
- Turn your classroom into a Gateway for learning about the world.
- Find What You Need
- Be creative with your supplies and furnishing. There are a load of US-based examples to put you in touch with corporate.
- Make Meaning from Word Clouds
- Use word clouds to encourage lively conversations about words with tools that convert text into visual displays
- Work Better, Together
- Use Collaborative workspaces in your classroom.
- Open a Back Channel
- Take input on how your class works. Ask for feedback
- Make it Visual
- Use visuals to inspire, create curiosity, brainstorm and engage your learners.
- Use the Buddy System
- Spend time with your peers sharing and collaborating. We have loads of resources available to us in Education Queensland. Consider the use of the ListServs, ICT Community and the fantastic guys at the Learning Innovation Centre.
Check this document out for yourself. Its excellent!
We use Audacity extensively at school. Unfortunately because of restrictions on the students login, it is difficult to use the LAME library to export the files to Mp3s when created a pod-cast.
What I have found works a treat then is to use something called FlicFlac - this is a single executable that allows you to drag/drop your completed WAV file onto the program, and it simply exports it to Mp3. Super simple!
Further info:
Audacity – http://audacity.sourceforge.net
FlicFlac – http://sector-seven.net/software/flicflac
Was sent this interesting link yesterday from a mailing list. It speaks about removing traditional PC labs from around a school, and bringing technology to be further integrated into the classroom.
EDIT: Imported from old blog December 2008
