I will stay with you if you'll stay with me, said the fiddler to the drum (Neil Young)

Recently, as part of a professional development session, one of my awesome colleagues, let's call him Greg, did a nifty Prezi on the technological transformation in teaching from when he started in 1992 up to right here, right now.

It resonated with everyone in the room at Woodford House because we've all experienced the same feeling of being happy slapped by a technological jellyfish (I could have said 'teaching journey' but then I'd have needed to slap myself). 

There was quite a range. Mine started in 1983 (hello blackboards, chalk in my contacts - fun, Gestetners , banda machines and, eventually, putting marks into the Apple 2E) , one person in the room is a student teacher (so ipads, Turnitin, smart phones, laptops, smartboards and so on). 

Doesn't matter when you got on board this speeding train - teaching and learning continues to change.

Now would be the most exciting time for change in my time as a teacher!

Here's a quick video primer to get you up to speed with what Greg was on about: 



For me, the biggest part of that change, so far, has been learning to use a student learning system to the students' advantage. We use Schoology and it is transforming my teaching.

It really is. 

Learning is breaking out all over the place, literally! Anywhere, anytime. My students 'talk' to me from anywhere, at any time they like. And I can respond in kind.

Friday night last week, Jacky was working and I had a sugar load of marking to do. One of my students started a dialogue with me on Schoology that lasted for about 3 hours on and off as she aimed to conquer her connections standard (appropriate standard huh). It was quite a buzz to be privy to her thinking and discoveries. In between marking, I kept up my part of the deal by making suggestions and listening to her concerns and problems until she had resolved them to her satisfaction. 

It was the sort of thing that would be impossible to do in a class of 20 vivacious, effervescent, demanding Year 13 girls that lasts about 50 minutes on a wet Friday afternoon.

Clearly, course design and timetabling will be affected to a increasing degree in the future because of this new technology. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

I want to adjust to these changes now. I'm impatient, yes, but I think it's doable.

I want to design our English courses so that we cater much more for student diversity, creativity, and their need for collaboration. Starting with fostering and rewarding student curiosity.


I've made some proposals to my English colleagues that are exciting me. They build on those things I mentioned in that last paragraph.

The basic idea is simple: to tie a number of internal Achievement Standards into a student driven inquiry in terms 1 and 2. Then spend terms 3 and 4 preparing for a reduced number of external standards. I'm keen to include a lot of student choice in those external standards as well.

When I suggested these things to my colleagues they had the same reaction my Year 13 students had - affirmative noises and head nodding. I'm encouraged enough to see if it's going to fly. 

Today I worked out my 'breakouts' for the ulearn conference that I'm heading off to in my October study break. I focused on the kinds of people who were giving voice to these matters.

Should be fun. And I get to share the experience with some bright young things from school. 

Clapclapclapclapclapclap YEAH ALRIGHT WAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

These days of dust, which we've known, will blow away with this new sun (Mumford & Sons)

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But maybe, just maybe, the times they are a-changin'.

Maybe, just maybe, the industrial model of teaching will finally be smashed and broken up thanks to student learning systems like Schoology.

Fifty-five years ago, Marshall McLuhan wrote that thanks to mass media like TV, radio, and movies we taught in a classroom without walls.

Except that TV, radio and movies created a false dawn. Teachers adapted and used these media to change what we taught and how we taught, but it didn't fundamentally alter the regimented/timetabled way we taught.

We are basically still teaching as we have since the printing press was invented.
 
But...

...we are slowly waking up to the fact that, thanks to being connected by computers and the interweb, we now need to teach in a different kind of school.

Now, thanks to Schoology and the ever expanding world of new devices that our students are using, I glimpse a new dawn, people.

These new ways of connecting/ communicating 'threaten, instead of merely reinforce, the procedures of this traditional classroom' (McLuhan 1957).

 

Great!! let's get rid, I say.

Cold as ice cream but still as sweet (Blondie)

Life is starting to settle into some semblance of order with work days and weekends forming patterns. For so long we have had to snatch glimpses of normalcy and routines had no chance.

It's been an old school Sunday today. I've been doing marking and preparation for the coming week pretty much all day.

With a twist.

I've physically only marked two scrips with a pen - the rest have all been assignments delivered into a dropbox on my school schoology account. I've checked the various essays and 'written' comments on the work digitally. Apart from a couple of DOH! moments where I failed to save my comments it's been smooth sailing.

The reading and commenting on a screen has taken some adjustment. I'm from a generation that is mostly comfortable editing stuff in hard copy.

The other neat element of today was conversing with my students as I marked their work. Little messages and updates kept popping up all day long as they responded to my notices and assessments and their essays.

Cool - marking didn't seem such a chore and I got to listen to some Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Stan Getz, The Exponents and others.

Keep on the sunny side (The Whites)

Shot myself in the foot this week didn't I!

It seemed like such an innocuous thing to do but I clearly didn't thoroughly think things through (hey hey, alliteration kids).

We have a student learning system at school called Schoology. It started a few weeks ago and staff and students are getting slowly into it together. Usually technology + students means they are way ahead of teachers but in this instance we seem to be slowly learning about the possibilities of Schoology together.

I placed a photo on my profile page that Adam had taken of me in San Francisco (below right) and placed on his facebook page.

Wozza creepily contemplates how
stoopid he can be!

Unfortunately my Year 9 students told me that the picture was 'creeping them out' and they asked me to change it. Sure I said - how about of our cat, 'Waffles'? Yes they said.

I was at school without my picture files so I went to my blog to find a picture of Wafi. As I was doing so the girls spied the title to the blog - Wozza's Place. "Who's Wozza?". they  asked innocently.

At that point I swallowed hard, made noises like a blocked drain, and said, "Um...actually - that's me".

BAM!!!! The genie was out of the bottle and I have had to face some WOZZAAAAAH type comments on their Schoology messages to me over the last few days..

My baad!!

I had to have 'the talk' and explain to the girls that calling me Wozza from now on was NOT going to happen. They are a sensible bunch and they knew what I meant. More sensible than me as it turns out.

Moral of the story? Don't you eat that yellow snow!