When asked “when are ever going to need this?” by his students about an algebra procedure, high school teacher Dan Sherman says:

Never. You will never use this.

It then go on to remind them that people don’t lift weights so that one day they will be prepared should one day, someone knock them over on the street and lay a barbell across their chests. You lift weights so that you can knock over a defensive lineman, or carry your groceries or lift your grandchildren without being sore the next day. You do math exercises so that you can improve your ability to think logically . so that you can be a better lawyer, doctor, architect, prison warden or parent.

MATH IS MENTAL WEIGHT TRAINING. It is a means to and end (for most people) and not an end in itself.

I like it and although it’s a feeling I’m sure most teachers share with their students already the weights analogy would I’m sure appeal to an element within our classes.

For a quick look at some of these sites check out

Lana’s class blog, Nat’s class blog, and Emma’s Wiki this is just the beginning I’m sure of some great work. For any help setting up your own blog/wiki either send me an email or I’m sure these guys could tell you how easy it was.

It has been good to have this break I feel and not add anything to my Del.icio.us or find anything new and rather give some thought to the things that we can be trying this next term.

I did however still use the computer which I guess shows how much a part of our life it has become. We now have some people we only talk to through skype/ichat and whenever I don’t know the answer to something wikipedia is never far away.

I did do some reading however and this article from the independent generated a bit of discussion in our house about school closures in Knowsley.

The new centres will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.
Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.

Children will be able to study haircare, beauty therapy, leisure and tourism, and engineering as well as the more traditional academic subjects.

They will be given their day’s assignments in groups of 120 in the morning before dispersing to internet cafe-style zones in the learning centres to carry them out.

The 21,000 youngsters of secondary education age in Knowsley will also be able to access their learning programmes from home.

There was also some discussion on Derek’s blog which is always worth a look at. But I couldn’t help thinking why do they keep trying these things in schools where there is more chance of it failing than succeeding, I know they have nothing to lose but surely someone needs to take an opportunity with a succeeding school. I know “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but what if school could actually be memorable for most kids rather that just another gateway.

On less of a high horse note check out visuwords it’s an online graphical dictionary and pretty amazing in how it works.

Technorati Tags:
education, dictionary, newschools

I heard this on a podcast today and it reminded me of a statement made in this address where David Tuck, National President of the Head teachers in the UK stated that:

“We have: an overabundance, a glut, a surfeit, an excess, an embarrassment of initiatives. I don’t know what the collective noun for initiatives is, but in this instance I would like to suggest it might be a “lunacy of initiatives”.

In reading through his whole address there are a number of issues he brings up that certainly apply to New Zealand schools, especially with the constantly increasing political pressures for schools to deal with everything from obesity, “P” to road safety. I recall when teaching in the UK my school was in the process of being replaced by a privatised business academy, from visiting their website I see that they have still been having problems with ofsted (UK ERO) and although the buildings look impressive I don’t believe privatisation is the answer, rather I hope we can try and manage the changes better. So before testing reaches levels like in the US (I see there is serious testing for pre school) let us have these discussions as a education community.

Technorati Tags:
vision, education, davidtuck

technorati tags:blogging, blogs, warlick, education

I use wikipedia extensively in my teaching and for up to date information feel that it hands down beats the newsmedia. Example being the recent events in Virginia, while the media were showing us the killer and videos (sells great tv) on wikipedia I could read about Professor Liviu Librescu who held the door of his classroom shut while events were unfolding and was killed protecting his class.

There are certainly limits to a user edited encyclopedia but where else would I find an entry on New Zealand Schools and many other topics. So give it a go click on random link and see where it takes you.

Came across this table on Darren Drapes Blog, would be interested to see what a NZ based chart would show. Incidentally the quiz is located at pew international and you can probably guess which category I was in.  

In December, the National Center for Education Statistics published areport on adult literacy revealing that the number of college graduatesable to interpret complex texts proficiently had dropped since 1992from 40 percent to 31 percent.

A lot of these articles place blame on Google and in the case of the Herald article NCEA. This worries me, for it seems that there is a push for students to learn facts. I recall having to learn the capitals and countries of the world when I was in a particular class at Intermediate School. This makes me an asset in any pub quiz but as my wife tells me I am just full of useless information. So what are we to do in education do we continue to teach to the test as IB and Cambridge exams call for or is this an opportunity to use the new system and actually have some real change.

I recall this quote that two staff brought back from a differentiation conference “If we keep teaching our students the same way – and many keep on failing, who are the slow learners?”

The following table is copied from Andrew Churches Blog which also includes the tools with relation to Blooms revised taxonomy so have a look at what is available.

Traditional Approach	Digital Alternative	Software Tools (Italics Opensource or free version)
Note taking	Brainstorm and word processing software	Inspiration, smartideas, Cmap, Freemind, open office, StarOffice writer, MS Word, Abiword, Notepad, one-note
Formal writing	Word Processing software Desktop publishing software	StarOffice writer, MS Word, Abiword,Notepad, Google documents, AJAXwrite, Open Office, Microsoft Publisher, PagePlus
Drafting process	Word Processing Software	StarOffice writer, MS Word, Abiword, Notepad, Google documents, AJAXwrite, Open Office
Formal Communications. E.g. Letters	email	emails, IM, Blogs discussion boards and First Class conferences, Jotspot
Informal Communications	Email and instant messaging	First Class Conferences, chatrooms, IM Moodle, Outlook, thunderbird
Research from encyclopaedias etc	Online encyclopaedias	Britannica on line, wikipedia (with caution) etc, Living library..
Research from Newspapers, journals and magazines.	Online newspapers etc	Internet explorer, Firefox, RSS aggregaters, wizz RSS, blogspot feeds etc
General research	Search engines and directories, web quests	Internet explorer, Firefox, RSS aggregaters
Presenting material, creating posters etc	Presentation software, graphics tools, web publishing	Impress, powerpoint, Open Office,Corel draw, Staroffice Draw, Inkscape MS Paint, the GIMP, Tuxpaint, paint.Net, Adobe Photoshop, Photostory 3
Watching videos	Digitised resources	Microsoft media player, Quicktime, Google Video, YouTube, Teachertube
Journals	Blogs, vLogs	First Class blogging tools, Blogger, bloglines, Myspaces, MSN, Google video, Youtube
Distributing Homework and assignments	Posting to conferences.	Email, Blackboard, WebCT, MyClasses,First Class, Moodle, class blogs
Collecting Homework	Drop Boxes	Email, Blackboard, WebCT, MyClasses,First Class, Moodle
Paper based tests	Electronic tests	First Class, Moodle, LAMS, sharepoint, Myclasses, SurveyMonkey
Voting and surveys (paper based or show of hands)	Online surveys and Polls	First Class, Survey Monkey Moodle, LAMS
Discussions	Asynchronous & synchronous tools, IM, Chatrooms, Forums, Threaded discussions	First Class,MSN, Yahoo messenger, Moodle, LAMS
Brainstorming	Brainstorming software	Smartideas, Kidspiration, Cmap, Freemind, Inspiration
Personal Organisation	Calendaring and task	First Class, Ganttproject, MS Project, task coach, Moodle, Outlook
Mathmatics (paper based, calculator	Spreadsheet, calculators	Star Office Calc, Open Office, MS Excel, Standard and scientific calculators, digitiser

With options such as Google Docs and open office there is no barrier to people having access to these programs for free. I am reminded of this when I see students with laptops doing their homework in word pad or Microsoft works because they cannot afford the upgrade to Office. As Teachers I believe we need to understand the tools available and use them as best we can.

Recently I have been using Freemind. This is Open Source (read Free) software for concept mapping. It also has the added bonus of integrating with Mindmeister which allows anyone with an account to edit the concept map live online.

The following video I came across thanks to Karl Fisch’s blog and is simply more food for Teachers looking for reasons to get Technology involved in their classroom.

When I see these changes in students lives I’m reminded by how different my 7 month old daughter views the world of technology.  A normal phone call for her is through the computer using iChat or Skype.  What will school be like for her?  Hopefully not exactly the same as it was for me.

Understanding what drives and motivates young people is also
critical given the unprecedented commitment to the renewal
of our school building stock: capital investment is set to reach
£5.1 billion by 2006, and over the next ten to 15 years every
secondary school in the country will have been ‘transformed’. In
2005 this commitment was extended to primary schools.
Nevertheless, the level of investment so far in school buildings has
not led to consistently fresh interpretations of what schools could
look like. Most new buildings,modernisations and new blocks still
comprise a fairly traditional ‘boxes and corridors’ model of
education, determined by classrooms, in which the teacher’s
station is at the front, storage and computers go round the sides of
the rooms and desks are arranged in rows or banks.Over the last
ten years schools have also seen a massive investment in
hardware, but we have not seen the same level of investment in
teacher training to ensure that the hardware is being used to its
full potential, or in support for schools to really re-imagine the way that learning is organised.

So the challenge then is what can be done to improve in these two areas, is there a better way to set out a classroom or is the whole idea of rows or groups so entrenched in students minds that change is seen as too difficult. For some ideas on alternatives a google search of alternative classroom design turned up some interesting articles and links (NCEF).

The point about teacher training not keeping pace with advances in learning I have to agree with. I just hope that teachers will now be supported by the ICTPD project past three years and it doesn’t become just something we do for a few years and then consign to history.