Books are a dead source of information!

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by i_gallagher 


There is a title to a blog that I am sure is not going to impress everybody and I hope that I can elaborate on it elegantly in the following blog posts.  By dead source, I do not mean that we should not have traditional books anymore.  By dead source, I mean that once the words on the page are published, that is it.  There is no changing no collaborating, no editing.  It is the 'be all' and 'end all' of information.  There is no way of changing it and no way of adding value to it.

As you are all aware from previous blog posts, I am a podcasting tragic.  I love it when my lovely wife says to me 'Ashley I need you to drive down to the shops and get....'  My first thought in my head is always 'Yes!  More time to listen to my podcasts'  It is not easy being me, but somebody has to!  Anyway, one of my favourites is TWIG: This Week in Google.  I always find that I am a week behind because my feed banks up and I can never keep up to date.  In episode 118, Jeff Jarvis discusses his new book Private Parts and the irony of the book.  The book is all about his life in public and he is sharing it in the least social means possible: traditional print media.  As I was listening to it (and I encourage you to do so if you haven't already) I thought more and more about education of course and the traditional textbook.


Now the traditional textbook caters for one type of learner and is big and clunky and heavy.  The traditional textbook is usually factually correct (at time of print) professional and very text heavy.  Back in my day at high school, the traditional text book was like a big brick of information.  It was heavy in weight and heavy going.  I always remember my biology textbook.  Biology was a subject that I struggled with (due to a lack of interest and maturity on my part) and the textbook used to bore me to death.  There would be a ‘chunk’ of information (90% text and some pictures) and at the end some questions.  Iit was used as the ‘bible’ for our subject.  Everything we needed to know about biology was located in it and we used it to pass exams.  If I remember correctly, I wasn’t encouraged to think and would definitely not question the knowledge being shared with me.  It was a one way medium of communication.  If I didn’t get it, I was up the creek without a paddle.


In TWIG, Jeff explores the notion of authors writing texts that audiences need / want.  He went on to discuss the various ways we can do this and once again my mind wondered to the question: How can we make dynamic ‘textbooks’ to cater for the needs of 21^st century learners?  The point of this blog post is not to discuss the need or value of the textbook, but how to recreate and reshape what we already do to meet the needs of our learners.  The most obvious tool that comes to mind would be the use of a wiki that can be edited by the teacher and provide dynamic content for the students undertaking the subject.  I think that there has to be a balance between student created content and student delivered content.  By that I mean, kids just need to be delivered content sometimes.  Once the content has been delivered to them in a manner that they are comfortable with, the assessment parameters will dictate how they will demonstrate their knowledge of concepts explored.  My biggest concern with the rollout of 1-1 in high schools is the delivery of curriculum.  I have heard examples of textbooks and worksheets being scanned into PDF format and delivered digitally to the students.  Are you serious? 


I would love to hear from our leaders out there - teachers!  How do you get the balance right?  What mediums do you employ to deliver content to your students?  Are they open places that can be shared?  

The Australian Stock Exchange and the impact it has had on my students.

In previous blog posts, I have explored the notion of providing as many authentic learning experiences as possible for my kids.  I must admit that I am a little bit over teaching / exploring concepts that have no relevance to the world that my kids live in.  Whilst I realize that academic concepts sometimes need to be explored 'just because' it doesn't mean that I have to like it.

Over the past three years, I have had my students undertake a mathematical investigation using data collected from the Australian Stock Exchange.  My kids are given a fictional amount of money and are required to investigate some companies that they can possibly invest their money in.  Mathematical concepts that are explore include: percentage, graphing, profit / loss and data.

In 2010 and 2009, it was reasonably successful but I was looking for something more authentic and more engaging.  Earlier this year, I found out that the ASX hosts a student game that runs twice a year.  After investigating it further, I realised that this is what I was looking for and I signed the kids up.  The game gives students $50 000 and the use real time data and trading scenarios / costs. The game ran for ten weeks and allowed me to easily track student progress very easily.

Each student was required to report back to the company directors of McDowall Millionaires.  They had to produce a report at the beginning, half way through and at the end.  Whilst a lot of them did not make a lot of money due to the downturn in the market, the enthusiasm they demonstrated for the task was infectious.  The market opened at 10am Brisbane time and I would see kids start looking at each other from around 9:45 wondering who was going to ask Mr Proud if they can log on and check out their portfolios.  Even though the game is finished now, I still catch them sneaking a look at their stock.  It has been infectious.

So what lessons have I learnt from this activity?  It reinforced the notion that I already knew - when students can see a purpose to the world that they live in, they enjoy learning and are more engaged.  I have actually had a number of parents comment to me that this was one of the most powerful learning experiences that their children have ever undertaken.  I just hope with the new ACARA curriculum next year that we continue to provide students with 'real world' experiences and don't loose sight on what is important: the lifelong learning that students undertake to make the world that they live in make sense.  

Jellycam....a cool tool with lots of practical uses.

As I stated in my previous blog post, some of my kids have been exploring the use of a tool called Jellycam.  The easiness of its interface makes it an attractive tool for both students and teachers alike.  Below is a video explaining 'how to' use this tool.  I found this video helpful, so hopefully you will as well.



So obviously this tool helps you make stop motion animations of situations and I won't attempt to outline all of the possible ways that you could use this tool in your classroom but I will share some of my more loopy ideas.  They are:

• Set it up in the front of your classroom at the start of the day and set it to take a photo every five seconds or so.  At the end of the day, create a video from your photos and you have a stop motion animation of you entire day in the classroom from a particular perspective.
• Obviously science and change leads itself well towards this tool.
• Building upon my love of handwriting, use it (not sure if it would work) to create an animation of student handwriting.  Does this have any place in the crowded curriculum? Not really but it would be fun.
• We have all seen those drawing stop motion animations.  Kids would love using this tool for that.

I am sure that you have a million other possible ideas and I would love to hear about them.  Please leave me a comment with your ideas.  By sharing our ideas, the community of we is strengthened and the community of me is also empowered.  

Some of the awesome stuff that my kids are doing

As we once again wind down to the end of another strenuous and sometimes tedious school year and I realized that this blog has gone away from my sharing of pedagogy mantra to more the 'Philosophy of Education According To Ashley' theme.  Whilst it has been fun undertaking blog posts in this way, I think that I am going to get back to having the right mixture and dedicate more time to sharing what my kids are doing and why they are doing it.

I have been lucky enough to work with the fantastic Megan Stace this semester and she had an awesome idea that I shared with you in a previous blog post.  In a nutshell, kids had to use cardboard to create a chair that needs to hold a weight of 60kg for a substantial period of time.  The trick is that the chair must not be joined by any adhesive items (eg glue, sticky tape) and the aesthetics will be assessed as well.  As a part of the design process, we threw it over to the kids.  We explained what we wanted to see and left it up to them on how they wanted to show it to us.  It has been an interesting experiment.  My class is 1-1 whilst the class next door isn't. A number of them have used Jellycam to create a stop motion animation of their design process.  I will attempt to get parent permission to share the videos that the kids have created.

They have really enjoyed it.

The community of we!

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Toban Black

A while ago, I wrote a blog post entitled Do we have a professional obligation to share? In this post I stated (and it is pretty sad that I am quoting myself) that:

People who know me know that I love to hear stories. I love it when somebody shares something that they are doing in their classroom. Even if I don’t think it ‘adds value’ to my life, it is still fun to hear. I am also an ‘idea manipulator’. I will see or hear about an idea that somebody else is implementing with their kids and modify it to suit my needs.

The whole post (which was pretty bland to be honest) explored the notion of sharing, but I want to talk about what I mean by an 'idea manipulator'.  As discussed last week, I had an in depth conversation with my principal about various issues and he talked about this philosophy of idea manipulation.  The world is such a connected place and I can easily access knowledge / expertise of somebody else at a very quick pace.  If I don't know how to teaching something, or I think that somebody else can explain it better, I have the power to find that knowledge somewhere.

Whilst I don't think that anybody could argue that educators have a moral obligation to share, do we do it enough?  When I attend conferences now, I am not really interested to much in the 'how to' sessions.  If it is a presenter (such as Mark Staines who is coming to my school on Thursday afternoon to do a session on digital storytelling) I will go to help develop my practice but as a general rule of thumb, I avoid these sessions like the plague.  Unfortunately there is still a huge need to deliver 'how to' sessions and I find myself delivering these type of sessions whenever I give PD.  What I am really interested in is exploring people's pedagogy - what worked for them, why did it work, what failed, what they would do differently.

So how can we foster and encourage more people to contribute to the community of we?  Obviously blogging is one way.  I am on a bit of a blogging crusade at the moment and I am glad that I am.  Another way is writing for a professional journal.  Beryl Exley recently delivered a series of literacy PD sessions to our staff.  After discussions with her, she has asked me to write a series of articles for different journals.  At first, I wasn't so sure.  But upon further reflection, I thought 'What the heck.....I blog and share anyway!'  Another method is email.  If I see a good link or hear about it, I share it as widely as I can.  Like most staff, we have a generic email address that sends messages to all members of staff.  I use this to 'flick on' any things that come across my stream.

But what I really want it to get inspired by other peoples ideas and manipulate them to suit my own purposes. If I am not a connected educator, there is no way that I can possibly do this and therefore am doing a dis justice to the students under my care.

Nothing like handwriting to stimulate passion from teachers - a response to my blog post

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Yesterday when the video that I used to help stimulated my thoughts came across my stream, I didn't know that it would cause so much discussion.  For those who don't know what I am talking about, the article that I am talking about can be found here.  I certainly didn't set out to shake things up as much as I have but since people have added their thoughts to mine, I think that I should take the time to correctly articulate a response.

Robyn Royan was the person who I feel had the strongest opinions expressed in the comment stream.  I feel that her comment was very relevant and I would like to take some time to respond to it.  She stated "Would that be the worst hand writer in the world? (Hope they teach grammar) Let's hope that he learns to write for the fine motor skills and the thrill of having a thought and expressing it without tapping and batteries and electricity. Hope you take him camping with no technology and encourage him to record the best parts through words and art in a journal. Hope he learns to write so he can pen a special card to his partner, child, grandchild, or fill in an autograph book with a special message." It is great to see that people can use blog comments to express an opinion and add value to a discussion.  Whilst I take on board what Robyn has stated (particularly about my poor grammar from a rushed blog post) some of the other points need clarification.  At no time did I not say that handwriting should disappear from the learning process.  I actually said that the major point (in my humble opinion) of writing is to communicate meaning.  I think that Robyn will be happy to know that my child is a very happy young man who has already experienced some of the things that she outlines.  He constantly is looking for ways to express his opinion on things in his journal and loves using it to write basic stories.  His fine motor skills are fine and just the other day, he came home from his grandparents house with a card that he has created for his kindy teacher.  My child also express his thoughts in feelings in many different ways.  He enjoys drama and interacting with his peers in different role playing experiences.  I hope that his education can be rounded and as exciting as it possibly can be.

I love living in a connected world where people are free to express their professional opinions in a productive way.  It stimulates discussion and challenges peoples thoughts.  If we all agreed on everything, the world would not be a pretty dull place.

Punctuation Saves Lives But Does Handwriting?

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Dan4th

This video came across my stream last night and I found it funny but it also got me thinking.



So whilst the whole message behind the video is intended to be funny, it still got me thinking. I agree 1000% that punctuation is extremely important (and in this context saves lives) but what about handwriting? The concept of handwriting, its purpose and its place has been intriguing me lately and now I think I have gathered my thoughts enough to reflect upon it.

The elegant Jodie Reik wrote a blog post recently titled Say Goodbye To Teaching Cursive Writing If you are a twitter person and you don't follow Jodie, do yourself a favor and add her to your tweetstream.  She constantly puts stuff out there and has a great blog as well.  This article really got me thinking and the action of some of my colleagues here at my school did as well.  In the article Jodie explores the role of handwriting in the modern curriclum.  She states:

Let us consider how often we are required to use cursive in the world today. Yes we need to be able to sign our own name, however that is realistically just a unique and identifiable mark for legal documents. How many things require you to hand write anymore? Shopping lists, no they can be done digitally; brainstorming – again these can be done digitally?, banking – already most of us use online services; legal documents – often requires print but not cursive. So considering how often we use cursive handwriting, is it a requirement for life? For literacy? My personal opinion as an educator is that as long as I can read it and understand it, I really do not mind what format it is in.

This got me thinking.  Whilst I teach upper primary (Year seven this year and for the last three years) I have taught in the lower school in the past.  I absolutely hated teaching Queensland Modern Cursive.  Ruling up the red and blue lines on the board was the most annoying thing that I had to do, and it didn't help that I had the worst handwriting under the sun.  I have what I call pigeon scribble.  My writing is legible (just) but I am able to do something very important with it - I can communicate message and meaning.  Isn't that what is the most important point of handwriting?

So I must admit to being horrified last Friday over morning tea.  My school is lucky enough to have just opened up a fantastic three story early years building which is outfitted with all of the 'mod cons' of modern education.  Every room has an interactive whiteboard.  Teachers are attending training and are generally pretty excited about having this tool at their disposal.  But then I heard the discussion turning to how they are going to get their 'lines' up on the board for handwriting practice and my heart almost stopped.   I actually sent the link to Jodie's article to one of them and lets just say that it didn't go down to well.

As a parent of a child who is entering Prep next year, I have a number of things that I want my child to be able to succeed in.  I want him to be literate, numerate, creative (luckily his mother is), a deep thinker, a creative analyzer of content but I couldn't give two hoots if he is the worse hand writer in the world.   As long as his writing is legible (which it generally already is), isn't that the most important thing?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

I love Blogger

One of the biggest advantages is the simple fact that I can upload to my site whilst sitting on my phone.

Are some curriculum areas more important than others?

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Like most principals, they are busy people.  I sat down yesterday for over an hour (which I have never done before in one hit) and had a detailed discussion with my principal.  The major purpose of my discussion was to discuss / explore how I was going to spend my $5000 prize money that I won from the Smart Classrooms award this year.  He had some solid ideas that I took on board.  We then got onto a number of whacky tangents and one was discussing a possible model of delivering some key learning areas in our school differently in the future.  It was something that I was totally in favor of and it certainly stimulated my thoughts.

Then last night, this video came across my stream.




If you haven't already noticed, I am really into video. I think that it does a great job telling stories and helping explaining concepts. This video really got me thinking about how I value certain key learning areas.  Let's be real - as a primary school teacher, it is very difficult to give all of the curriculum areas the justice that they deserve.  We are so focused on the so called 'cornerstones' of the curriculum that some things get pushed to the side and don't get given the justice that they deserve.  In my environment, one of those areas is The Arts.  I am no painter, but I appreciate the fact that I have a responsibility to give my students a well rounded education that caters for their needs.  The surprising thing is that all through high school, I studied Speech and Drama and loved it.  But within my classroom, I barely use it.  Why is that?   


So this video explores the notion that The Arts has as much value as the 'big ticket curriculum areas' such as maths and language.  Do we agree with that? I am not sure if I do.  My son is entering Prep next year (and he is pumped up about it) and I guess I am starting to look at things with rose colored glasses.  Having both a mother and a father for a teacher is not a great combination for our poor boy.  We went to his interview and I said to the deputy principal that I wanted a teacher that would encourage my child to solve problems and let his inquisitive nature shine.  But I really want him to get a rounded education but still be literate and numerate.

The best parent teacher interview that I ever had with a parent occurred last year.  At our school, we do interviews twice a year.  The first one is done about two weeks into the school year and the second one is done half way thought.  Obviously the first one is always a bit tricky.  You are basically just telling the parents you initial impression of their child and they raise any concerns that they may have.  One of my parents from last year had a really good boy, who was a fantastic student.  This father walks into the interview and after the opening pleasantries makes the greatest statement that I have ever heard a parent say ever.  He said:

Ashley I don't care if my son bums out on NAPLAN, gets straight E's on his report card and fails everything miserably.  All I want out of his education is for him to be able to be creative and be able to work in a team.  

After I picked my jaw up from the floor, I asked him why.  His son was a great boy and does exceptionally well academically.  His response was just as good

Whatever job that ...... does when he grows up will require him to solve problems in creative ways and work with people and be able to get along with people from different walks of life.  It doesn't matter if he is a brain surgeon or a street sweeper; they will teach him the skills that he needs to undertake the job.  Being able to be social and solve problems creatively are the most important things.

It was awesome and it was great to see a parent just get it but how does this relate to this blog post.  I believe that the message that he was selling me was reflected in the ideas explored in the video.  It is very difficult to find that balance but looking back at the ability to work creatively and solve problems that don't have the obvious answer should be the goal of every educator.  I think that the power of creative subjects is that they can influence the thinking of students if used in the correct way.

This was a bit of a ramble.  I would really like to hear from you about the original question - Are some curriculum areas more important than others?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

I love it when I am challenged to think

As per normal, I was lying in bed checking out my Twitter stream last night at around 10:00pm. It is pretty sad that this is one of my bedtime routines. I troll my stream, bookmark anything of value on my Samsung Galaxy SII phone and generally settle in for the evening. Most of the stuff that I bookmark, I never use again. I just like having it in a spot that I know I can refer back to in the future. An blog post by Steve Wheeler came across my stream and I was intrigued but didn't pay much attention. I had some time this morning and I revisited it and I was glad that I did.

The article was titled Outrageous Alternatives.  The article started with a bang when his first line was:

What is the most outrageous alternative education scenario you could imagine?

In my head, I thought "Kids being experts in areas and teachers becoming non existent."   But luckily for me I was entirely wrong.  The blog post went on to explore the different alternatives to our current education system and analysed the methods that have already been explored in the past.  It was a fascinating looking down memory lane and it was thought provoking.  He then went on to describe a model of schooling called Deschooling.  His synopsis of what Deschooling entails is that students should have freedom to be matched with other students who are exploring similar concepts from any place at any time.  Steve also went on to state

Under the current funding regimes of mass public education, and in the present ethos of rigid curricula and control freakery of Western governments, trying to formalise something like this is difficult. But when we consider that 80 per cent of what we learn is achieved primarily outside the school gates, I am sure we might agree there are some potential loopholes to exploit.

It is true.  As educators we are bound by curriculum and external pressures such as standardized testing and things as such.  I am currently undertaking a MOOC titled Change11.  This massively open online course encourages us to spread our wings, creating our networks and interact with our fellow participants in ways that suit our learning styles.  If we can do this as adults, surely we can provide opportunities for our students to learn in these ways.  So what is stopping us?  Apart from the obvious stuff, I think it is a mindset.  We like to think that we are in control and are the 'Grand Phooba' of knowledge.  This is why the flipped model of instruction appeals to me.  How awesome would it be if my kids could access expertise from a fellow educator from anywhere around the world on any topic?  I am not saying that I will entirely 'flip' my classroom but I am going to try and use it effectively in some curriculum areas.   This utopia vision may not happen perfectly for us but if we don't start thinking about it, we never will.

As per normal, I would love to hear your thoughts