Educational Origami

This is a little unexpected, I was on the BBC website and I found this link to “Global Best School Buildings”

Its a slide show of a number of schools showing interesting architecture and design.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14975270

The images show external and internal images of some schools around the world, including Finland, India, Japan, Australia and Spain.

There are some interesting and stimulating designs, some showing agility, but many are nicely presented versions of the traditional classroom. The Lilley center, at Brisbane Grammar school, is interesting but in the case of the lecture theatre is a well presented traditional space. I wonder how appropriate a lecture theatre is in a school? Some of the indoor/outdoor flows are very nice – the Kindergaden exaple from Japan is very good as is the other Australian Example from Dandenong Senior high School.

Food for thought.

What is missing, and I guess the article is focused on the macro elements is the furnishing and workspaces, the details that enable teaching and learning.

In my Classroom, all the furnishings are mobile, designed to quickly move from one mode (the rooms is in board room mode at the moment) to the next

A colleague recently said to me, quite proudly “We are a moodle school” and another school recently announced that they were now a Google school. In both case I felt that they had let down their students. They forgotten what was important, they had forgotten about the learning of the students and focused on the technology.

I am always disappointed when teachers focus to the exclusion of all others on one technology, be it an online environment or solution; or a platform or operating system. As soon as this happens its the tail wagging the dog, technology is driving educational decisions.

I am not trying to detract from either Moodle or Goodle Applications, in fact I believe that they are each excellent tools within the framework of their features, but to focus on them to the exclusion of others is limiting the opportunities that education requires.

All products have strengths and weaknesses, they all present opportunities that can with the creative mind of a teacher be utilised to improve the learning outcomes of our students. While Google documents allows for synchronous editing of documents, mail and some web publishings (as well as other bits and pieces) it doesn’t allow structured testing, linier progression through tasks which Moodle does. While Moodle does provide some walled garden features of social networking, it doesn’t do it as well as Ning does. And Ning does, in the fuller subscription models, allow some hosting of media, its no where near as good as flickr or youtube. None of the previous product host wikis as well as wikispaces or wet paint wikis but these two do not do the features of the social media tools or the synchronous editing.

There are always strengths and weaknesses, the best policy (IMHO) is to be agile and responcive. Not to lock yourself into one product but consider a range of products that will fill a number of needs. Be agile enough to pick up new tools as they become available and similarly to be able to let them go when they reach their used by date. Organisations struggle with this, technical departments struggles with this too. Teachers invest time and energy and then do not want to see it changed, to see the materials lost.

Organisations develop inertia. They see the investment they have made and don’t want to change. Once the object is rolling its hard to change its course. Then more you invest in an system, the bigger its mass and the more it takes to change, to deviate the mass from its course. When you say you are a Moodle, Google or insert product name here school you are creating a Mass with HUGE INERTIA. You are no longer agile, you are no longer flexible and it is unlikely that you are going to be able to change to met the needs of the students.

A better approach is to use each tool on its merits, be open to new material, able to change, to accept common standards to allow interoperability between platforms and applications.

IMHO, that is………………..

Here is an interesting infographic that compare the Old favourite of facebook and the new kid on the block Google +

The original site of the infographic is – http://plusweek.ly/facebook-vs-google-infographic-via-singlegrain/

source: http://plusweek.ly/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/facebook-google+-infographic.jpg

Its an interesting thought and one worth considering? There is obviously a direct power cost that we see each and every time we use our personal digital devices, be they connected directly to mains electricity or using store energy, charged from the mains. But there are also hidden energy cost that we should consider. The cost of searching, spam and alike

This infographic is food for thought:

source: http://9.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/earth-day-infographic-sm.jpg

There’s Facebook, facebook and more facebook. Between the movie about facebook – The social Network – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network and times man of the year http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2036683,00.html Facebook and its Developer/creator Mark Zuckerberg are getting huge publicity. Not that it really needs it with over 1/2 a billion people on the network – http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

I love facebook and I know I am not alone on that. It never ceases to amaze me how encompassing and enveloping facebook is.

My friend and colleague Doug just posted (on facebook) this brilliant article on facebook making connections – called visualizing friendships and with it this stunning image. The bright spots are the key areas of use and the lines show the linkages between them.

source: http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919

So is the world larger or smaller?

For the last 5 days, I have watched the unfolding events at Pike River, as indeed has the country and the world.  During the week, we have seen the full gambit of emotions and grief – shock, hope, fear, pain, denial, blame, bargining and acceptance.

It is said that times of trial are the making or breaking of a person, and there have been a number of people who have shown their worth. The CE of the company, Peter Whittal is one person who has been a rock as has the police commander Gary Knowles and Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn.

My thoughts and prayers are with all  – Kia Kaha – Stand Strong

Its disappoint to see spam coming through to blogs – its a waste of time space and energy. This blog is moderated so spam gets deleted.

I wonder if we under estimate the potential of social networks in education.

I was speaking to a collegue in the states today and he stunned me with the revelation that 1 in 9 marriage starts on social networks like facebook, myspace etc.

This was quite a revelation and one that has me thinking about the importance and power of social networks.

More to follow.

Well the three days of the workshop leaders course are over and next on the agenda is heading home. The course has been very useful from several perspectives:

1. Networking – This has been a brilliant opportunity to mix and mingle with leading teachers from across Asiapac. The presence of and our close ties with the otehr two programs, middle years and primary years, has been fun and very educational. All the teachers present are here because they are the leading teachers within their schools. Rubbing shoulders with such teachers is very valuable. The collective knowledge is phenomenal.
2. Understanding of the programs. It is safe to say that even though I teach in a PYP, MYP, Diploma school my understanding of the IB program as a whole was very limited. I walk away from this course looking at the program in a different way, with an understanding of what leads to the diploma program, of the foundations set in PYP, reinforced in MYP and applied in the diploma. Many of the components that seemed to be standalone features of diploma have been shown to be progressions from the earliest days of the primary years.
3. My respect for PYP and MYP teachers has grown immensely. There can be an arrogance in diploma teachers that is completely misplaced and unjustified. Yes we may have in depth detailed knowledge of our subject area, but sso to do the teachers of the other programs but for them it is stretched across 6 or 8 subjects. The level of planning inherent in PYP particularly, but also MYP is amazing.
4. This course was not about subject specific knowledge – the workshops we will present will cover some of this -rather it was a look at working with adults, showing understanding of key elements of the IB continuum – TOK and EE, Learner Profile and CAS – and developing an understanding that these are not separate from our subject syllabus rather rather encompassing. It does require a change in perception and attitude.

So where to from here…

Well, I have already considered some of the changes that I will make to my presentations at ulearn. Some of the activities that we worked through were very useful and I believe will make a difference to how I presented sessions. Similarly my role as a Trainer for ICT, has be influenced by what I have seen work and not work.

One of the most useful elements of the DP part of the course was the presentations by the trainees in their subject area of a TOK lesson. The different approaches the teachers employed was brilliant and very educational. One thing we as teachers do not do enough of (if we do it at all) is observe our peers as they teach and be observed. While being observed can be uncomfortable, the observations of our peers are immensely useful and valuable. I do not mean in the classical mode of a “CRIT LESSON” rather in an informal reflective mode where the pressure to reach the standards and be assessed on these are removed. A situation where your performance of the art of teaching is not contrived rather is natural.

The next challenge, before I even think about running a workshop, is taking this back to the school. I am left pondering this question. “How can I make a difference?” This quote from the TOK Guide sums it up…

“Whoever acquires knowledge and does not practise it resembles him who ploughs his land and
leaves it unsown.” (Sa’di)

Source; Diploma Programme Theory of knowledge—guide. IBO, March 2006 Page 11

This is a brilliant video and one well worth watching. Dr Wesch is a captivating speaker and his presentation method is great. if you haven’t watch it, get some pop corn, pull up a comfortable chair and click here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU

However, good as he is and nice as it is to watch and listen to, there are a number of lessons to be learnt from this.

I had both my Year 13 and year 12 ITGS classes watch this and I asked them two questions.

1. What was most memorable about this video?

2. What are the keypoints you have learnt from this video?

I then asked them to comment on these two questions on this post