Greg's Blog

The English education system has had a major review interum report published last month. It says such things as:

Techno-savvy youngsters are developing their computer skills faster today, providing untapped potential to boost learning in primary schools.
Schools need to move with the times and teach much secondary school Information Communication Technology (ICT) knowledge earlier at primary

and

“The primary curriculum needs to be forward-looking. Advances in technology and the internet revolution are driving a pace of change which we could not have imagined when the National Curriculum was introduced twenty years ago.

and even:

1.21. Although not in its remit, many respondents urged the Review to note what
they perceived are serious constraints imposed by the Key Stage 2 tests. There was
wide acceptance that schools, like all public services, must be publicly accountable
for the quality of their provision and the standards pupils achieve. The picture
is a familiar one in that few heads and teachers rejected the principles of good
assessment, including an element of testing, at particular staging points. Rather
their concerns centred on the way in which the outcomes of tests are reported and
the time many felt must be spent preparing children for the conditions of testing thus
narrowing the curriculum.

It also makes the point that children need to have an oral language basis to their learning. Children who begin school with an oral language deficit take a long time (if ever) to catch up. The report is available from here.

The proposed curriculum design sounds very much like our revised curriculum. So we are following England 5years ago with our National Testing? And a strategy that has the effect of ‘narrowing the curriculum’ Is it just me or does this seem odd? Anyway the report is interesting reading. Thanks Jane for the heads-up.

I have been spending this evening searching for information and opinions on national testing and league tables.

From ACT in Australia:

Public comparison of school results does not deliver better information for parents or better
public accountability to the taxpayer. It produces misleading and inaccurate information. It
does not lead to better schools for all. It produces social segregation. It favours privilege and
compounds the effects of disadvantage.
League tables of school literacy and numeracy outcomes give misleading and inaccurate
information about the quality of education because they do not measure the ‘value added’ by
the school. School test results are influenced by a variety of factors, not all of which are within
the control of schools or teachers. League tables do not distinguish the school contribution to
the test results from that of other factors such as family background and resources.
Socio-economic background is a major influence on education outcomes. High league table
results may reflect more the privileged family background and resources of the community
served by the school than the quality of teaching and the education program. As a result, league
tables can camouflage underachievement among mediocre schools with favoured intakes. On
the other hand, a school could perform badly in comparison with other schools despite high
quality teaching and resources because it serves a less-privileged community.
Comparisons of school results also lead to inaccurate assessments of school quality because the
tests are narrowly based. They do not assess the full range of schooling objectives. For
example, they ignore the social and personal development dimensions of schooling which are
just as important as the formal academic. Even in academic terms, the subject range and the
year cohorts assessed is limited. In other words, league tables do not give a complete picture of
the work of schools.

From an English ‘expert’:

“In England, a market approach to schools has created a bewildering hierarchy of institutions, from the elite private schools for the most powerful and advantaged families to the ‘bog standard’ comprehensive for the most disadvantaged and least powerful,” Professor Mortimore said in Sydney yesterday. “Is this what Australia needs?”

Peter Mortimore.

What the media do with the information:

If you are planning to live in Manchester and have children, the standard of schools in the area is important.
To that end, we have studied the most recent league tables (published in December 2006) to make a shortlist of the ten best and worst primary and secondary schools in Manchester.

Or from NY City:

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) outcome in 2005-2006 for All Students: NO
AYP outcome for Black or African American: YES
AYP outcome for White: NO
AYP outcome for Economically Disadvantaged: NO
AYP outcome for Hispanic or Latino: NO

As the first quote says … it is all a test of community and has precious little to do with value added or quality of education in the broadest sense. Helpful - no more than saying schools with blue gates or principals who wear ties do better than those who don’t.

Chris Leahman has a great discussion of this today:

Perhaps that’s the answer — assessment is not an interruption of learning if and when it can positively and directly influence the current or future learning and work of the student. If it does not, then it was an interruption of learning.

I agree completely - if the assessment does nothing to inform future learning and teaching programmes for that particular child then what was the point??!!

read the whole post here …

One of the things I am trying to do with our school is cut down the amount of assessment we do for summative purposes. And to establish ways of using one assessment for multiple purposes.
My vision is to have one piece of paper that records:
1. Maths - graph of strategy stage and basic facts knowledge as separate items, with respect to expectations.
2. Reading - graph of reading age with respect to chronological age.
3. Writing - surface, deep features and attitudes to writing. Focusing on the genre-irrelevant writing skills
4. Inquiry - ability to find, manage information and share information and learning

The rest of assessment information will focus on key competencies. We are mostly there with the first two, and working on #3. Our teachers only day next year will begin looking at the Key Competencies. I am happy to share what we have done to this point if you email me.

Most parents and families simply what to know how their child is doing with respect to both expectations and their previous ability. Sometimes I think we provide so much information it actually clouds the picture rather than providing clarity.

According to this article from the NY Times we are, seriously!

The lucrative nature of that revenue increase cannot be appreciated without doing something that T-Mobile chose not to do, which is to talk about whether its costs rose as the industry’s messaging volume grew tenfold. Mr. Kohl’s letter of inquiry noted that “text messaging files are very small, as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost carriers very little to transmit.”

A better description might be “cost carriers very, very, very little to transmit.”

A text message initially travels wirelessly from a handset to the closest base-station tower and is then transferred through wired links to the digital pipes of the telephone network, and then, near its destination, converted back into a wireless signal to traverse the final leg, from tower to handset. In the wired portion of its journey, a file of such infinitesimal size is inconsequential. Srinivasan Keshav, a professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, said: “Messages are small. Even though a trillion seems like a lot to carry, it isn’t.”

Perhaps the costs for the wireless portion at either end are high — spectrum is finite, after all, and carriers pay dearly for the rights to use it. But text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

Professor Keshav said that once a carrier invests in the centralized storage equipment — storing a terabyte now costs only $100 and is dropping — and the staff to maintain it, its costs are basically covered. “Operating costs are relatively insensitive to volume,” he said. “It doesn’t cost the carrier much more to transmit a hundred million messages than a million.”

So the texts we pay up to 20c for are sent at virtually no cost to Telecom or Vodafone. How many users are paying extra for limited numbers of texts on Vodafone or $10-$15 with Telecom, again for limited numbers of texts.  The telcos are raking it in!!
What happened to the numbers of texts causing carriers issues which is the reason we were told a couple of years ago caps had to be put on text plans. I smell a very large rat (again)?

A Tele-con?

Warning - This is one of my strongly held personal beliefs that doesn’t necessarily reflect my school or blog-host policy

One of my real concerns, as we look towards the new year is the National Party policy and now legislation mandating National Testing.  Bruce Hammonds says:

The National Government has rushed through its National Testing Legislation.According to the Prime Minister ‘ all students will face testing against national standards in literacy and numeracy from next year’.

And it is not to say that primary schools do not currently test their students. Far from it. As Kelvin Smythe says ,’ schools are already assessed up to the gunwales…the last thing they need is more pressure from the Review Office for even more assessment’. National Party policy statements say that new tests won’t be required as teachers already use AsTTle and PAT etc but they will be establishing benchmarks setting out minimum skills. This might not be such a concern as many school already do this and, if it were simplified, it might cut out the need for so many tests. Some of the tests schools are ‘encouraged’ to use , according to Kelvin Smythe, are overblown providing lots of data and little information, and I agree with him.

… and I must say I agree with him too … and more. Testing is NOT teaching!

Who would want to work in - or heaven forbid lead - a school identified by national testing as a ‘failing school’? We already have a dirth of those willing to step forward and take on principalship. (I understand) The average age of NZ principals is 56 and the average retirement age is 58; also aproximately 1/3 of principals have been through the First Time Principals programme - therefore at the beginning of their careers in principalship. So we already have a crisis for principalship looming in the next few years as we loose the majority of our experienced colleagues and have few to replace them with similar track records. Schools facing challenges need experienced and skilled leadership …. is this what they are going to get?

League tables tend to be a test of community rather than any perceived teacher competence or leadership expertise. Sure both groups can make a REAL difference but overall Hattie and others have shown time and time again that by far the largest influences on student achievement are outside the sphere of influence of the school. So how will national testing influence or impact positively on these things?

I believe this policy has the potential to be significantly divisive for our education system and sincerely hope our teacher and principal groups make a strong stand resisting it. This is all about populist politics and precious little about promoting educational achievement.

What do you think?
Do you work in a system with national testing - how do you find it? Am I overreacting?

source:

This is from a districts legal advice dept to teachers and administrators:

I’ve quoted the important/relevant part below:

A common misconception is that it is permissible to promote Christianity at Christmas, provided that other religions receive similar treatment at other times. For example, some teachers may try to justify celebrating Christmas by celebrating Hanukkah. This approach is wrong. First, Hanukkah is not a major Jewish holiday and should not be equated with Christmas, one of the two most important holidays in the Christian year. Second, one violation of the First Amendment does not justify another. If it is wrong to promote religion in the public schools at Christmas, it is wrong every other day of the year. Instead of “balancing” Christmas with Hanukkah, teachers should work to ensure that all holiday activities focus on objective study about religion, not indoctrination.”

SOURCE - in comments

The First Ammendment in the US prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religious belief (or not).
Get it wrong and you can be sued!!

whey …. li’l old NZ is quite fine by me.

I came across this video via Mark Treadwell some time ago and while e-crastinating (and finding the videos I want for the Teachers Only Day I am planning now for 2009) today I came across Robbie Dingos blog.  He is a very clever young man!

This video made in second life and playing with deconstructing Van Goughs famous painting shows what some are doing just for fun.

This video is another from his blog playing with morphing faces:

A post today from Leader Talk got me riled. A principal was looking for books to recommend to to a person they were mentoring for an assignment on essential reading for school leaders. Why only books - it is insane to only find your professional information from books!!
I left the following comment:

This video is stunning.  I had never heard of Jennifer Berger before but I like the simple and clear way she articulates her ideas:

“Faced with the choice between changing ones mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof” (JK Galbraith). Oh how true is this!? He must have been sitting in a few of the staff meetings I have been in
I love the change she highlights between 20th Century leadership being about management and control and 21st Century being about “creating fertile ground for changing minds”.

The conditions for changing minds she then goes on to elaborate on are:
* Laughing a lot -an interesting one as I know people have found this disconcerting about me as I do laugh a lot and it is something that was commented on in my first years appraisal at Outram.

* Making things visible - whether it be the elephant in the room or the possibilities.  Talking a lot about what is happening.

* Vision the future - people don’t know what they don’t know.  Explore the possibilities.  Vision is talked about a lot but I sometimes wonder what vision actually means for some school leaders - it is WAY more than what the paperwork and systems will look like!!  Relationships and learning are the keys for me.

“A leader is one who has more faith in people than they do, and who holds opportunities open long enough for their competence to re-emerge” (Margaret Wheatley)

* Celebrate failures - never thought of this overtly before.  I have had good laughs with staff about things that have crashed and burned, and what could have made it work.  They key thing is that without change, trying new things and experimentation there is not the possibility of success or failure.

* Welcome shadows -it is not all crystal clear!

* Tell change stories -a great way of sharing the other points as well.  Can make the stresses and challenges overt.

* Mourn the loss of the old - I had also not thought about how saying things need to change has clear personal implications for staff.  Saying ‘try this’ is also saying what you are doing now is not quite good enough any more …. more of a challenge than I had thought about I was providing.

This is a very worthwhile 47minutes.  I would recommend anyone in school management watch this!

I have had an interesting time in the last couple of weeks getting application packs for principal positions for new schools that are being established from scatch. How much fun would that be …. given a paddock and charged to create a school from scratch.
… or so I thought ….
Both of the positions I have seen are looking to appoint the principal well after the basic design work has been done on the school buildings and the MoE appointed architect has laid out the school. WHAT??!!
One of the most powerful influences on school culture and student achievement is the physical environment. The Reggio people are on the button when they describe the environment as the third teacher (in their ‘classrooms’ there are two teachers).
so ….
WHY on earth is the principal appointed at the stage where they have little influence left on the physical environment of the school they are establishing? I just don’t get this. A massive lost opportunity and with all due respect what on earth does an architect know of learning and teaching pedagogy?

Surely the first thing to do when a new school is planned is to appoint the person who will have the role of pulling it all together.  This is NOT a project manager, this is the leader of learning and teaching … a principal.  The MoE needs to get a lot sharper if they are serious about creating innovative and leading edge schools.

anyway …. rant over

So says the Huffington Post:

It is safe now to say that “Web 2.0″ is dead. The evidence is irrefutable and it exposes the twin fallacies the concept of Web 2.0 has depended upon: 1) that people can build their worlds around - indeed, will want to build their worlds around - social networking; and 2) that social networking offers a viable, massively scalable business model.

A financial and economic argument but interesting all the same.
I must admit I seriously don’t get things like Facebook and Twitter. I have friends who spend hours on them and love the things they can do for them in terms of their learning networks.

We are into the last week of school next week for the 2008 year. Lots achieved and still plenty to do …. better get on with reading reports (really interesting and one of the rewards of principalship really - getting a good overview of the full schools achievement for the year).

not sure if this is fun or sad …. the jury is out

Doug Johnson at Blue Skunk has this as his list …. what would you add?

These would be my nominees for the most stupid things** a teacher can do related to technology…

1. Not backing up data. “You mean having two copies of my files on the hard drive doesn’t count as a backup?” The first time a teacher loses his/her precious data my heart breaks. The second time, well, stupidity ought cause some suffering.

2. Treating a school computer like a home computer. Teachers who use a school computer to run a business, edit their kid’s wedding videos, or send tasteless jokes to half of North America (including that fundamentalist English teacher down the hall) are being stupid. Teachers who take their computers home and let their kids hack on them are being stupid. Teachers who don’t own a personal computer for personal business deserve to get into well-deserved trouble.

3. Not supervising computer-using students. It is really stupid to believe Internet filters will keep kids out of trouble on the Internet. For so many reasons. Even the slow kids who can’t get around the school’s filter, can still exploit that 10% of porn sites the filter won’t catch if they choose to do so. They can still send cyberbullying e-mail - maybe even using your email address. Or they can just plain waste time.

4. Thinking online communication is ever private. Eventually everyone sends an embarrassing personal message to a listserv. I’ve heard of some tech directors who get their jollies reading salacious inter-staff e-mails. You school e-mails can be requested and must be produced if germane to any federal lawsuits. Even e-mails deleted from your computer still sit on servers somewhere - often for a very loooong time. Think you wiped out your browsing history? Don’t bet that that is the only set of tracks you’ve left that show where you’ve been surfing. Your Facebook page will be looked at by the school board chair and your superintendent and principal know who the author of that “anonymous” blog is. Not assuming everyone can see what you send and do online is stupid.

5. Believing that one’s teaching style need not change to take full advantage of technology. Using technology to simply add sounds and pictures to lectures is stupid. Smart technology use is about changing the roles of teacher and student. The computer-using student can now be the content expert; the teacher becomes the process expert asking questions like - where did you get that information, how do you know it’s accurate; why is it important, how can you let others know what you discovered, and how can you tell if you did a good job? The world has changed and it is rank stupidity not to recognize it and change as well.

6. Ignoring the intrinsic interest of tech use in today’s kids. Kids like technology. Not using it as a hook to motivate and interest them in their education is stupid.

7. Thinking technology will go away in schools. The expectation tha “This too shall pass” has worked for a lot of educational practices and theories. Madeline Hunter, Outcomes-Based Education, whole language, and yes, some day, NCLB all had their day in the sun before being pushed aside by the next silver bullet. (I think that metaphor was a bit confused. Sorry.) But it is stupid to think technology will go away in education. It isn’t going away in banking, medicine, business, science, agriculture - anywhere else in society. Thinking “this too shall pass” about technology is pretty stupid.

This is a great list.  There are clear guidelines for us in NZ about use of TELA laptops.  Our school certainly has firm rules about supervision when kids are online …

After the challenge from Doug I would add:

*having a hotmail address like hotbabe@hotmail.com on your CV.  As a principal I urge you NO …NO …. NO!!!
* thinking that integrating technology will immediately be easy.  There will always be what Michael Fullan calls the Implementation Dip when making any change.  It will be hard work for a while but pretty soon things become easier and require less work/effort.

* adding too much.  Keep it simple and focus heavily on PURPOSE.  As I have said again and again if it is simply different and not better then why are you doing it?  A precise purpose helps manage the workload too.  Eg with blogging things can get huge if you let them but if you have a precise purpose for what you are doing then it is easier to resist the seductive “wouldn’t it be cool to …” urges that then take ages to follow up and maintain.  Pick one thing, learn about it, explore and do it WELL.

* and the stupidest thing of all to do is …. NOTHING.

via Gary Stager.

link

This conference sounds very cool!

What is EduCon 2.1?
EduCon 2.1 is both a conversation and a conference.
And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams.

Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.1
1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members
2) Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can — and must — be networked.

There are going to be some great thinkers here in an TedTalk like format as well as keynotes.  It is not often I aspire to go to conferences overseas but this sounds great.  Wouldn’t this be fun in NZ … get a whole group of great thinkers and practitioners together and get them to spend 10-15min reflecting on their key professional learning.  Then time for interaction and conversation.

The ultimate UnConference ….??!!

I love the Guiding Principals …. capture well what the revised NZC has to offer in terms of possibilities and where I believe ICTs fit in our classrooms.  Isn’t it good to see the #3 made overt …. “oh my teaching will be so much beter if only I had an IWB, another 3 laptops, more digital cameras”.  Rubbish!!  Your teaching will be better whe you are a better teacher, not simply when you have more toys and tools.

I have been thinking more and more about performance management and appraisal since the last time I wrote on this….

I really like the diagram below from Julia Atkin!

Many people find ICT (and other) learning stays stuck very much in the Guru Loop stage where they are doing things simply because someone else says it is a good idea, and they rely on others for stimulation and resources.  The fun bit starts when you are reflecting on practice and aligning things from different places in your professional learning network to create new things to do to make things even better for yourself and the children you teach.

I have shared this with our staff to encourage them to move beyond relying on me or any other person to tell them what to do.  Also to make the point that it IS ok to take the leap from following the tried and true to what you now know will make a positive difference for the children in your class.

The thing this diagram also highlights well is the stress and ‘ouch’/discomfort factor of moving from being told what to do to working it out for yourself…. but thats when it is really fun and exciting learning just begins!

blatently cut and pasted from Cult of Mac Blog:

Mac OS X is, and always has been, vulnerable to trojans.

Wanna keep your computer clean? Next time you’re surfing some random porn site and a pop-up tells you to “Install a codec” so you can watch the movies, it’s a good idea to click Cancel.

I must be computer illiterate as this clarified the difference for me! …. lol

I love this image from Tony Ryans blog. He also shared it in his ULearn presentations …. it has so much to say at so many levels!

it reminds me of our school vision which is also visual rather than lots of words.

(note - link is to our new school website I am working on so is very much a work in progress.  If you go to here you will get to our public site.)