ELH Conference - video stream starting now

CONFERENCE NOW OVER. SEE LINKS AND RECORDINGS BELOW:

The Broadcast Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/technology-in-education-show

August 14 to 16, 2011

In brief: I will use this page to broadcast a video stream of the Expanding Learning Horizons conference is taking place RIGHT NOW in Lorne, Victoria, Australia, whenever I can. I'll get permission from presenters as I go. I'll send updated via my Twitter feed as to my intentions.

I love the thought that rather than travel, pay $$ for conference rego, get permission from your school, etc, etc, you can participate in the conference from your arm chair, with a cuppa, just when you feel like it!

Sessions by myself and colleagues from NBCS / SCIL:

- my colleagues Lou Deibe and Ro Beale - on 'Empowered by Immersion' Monday 2.30pm (international time here), excitingly, they will cross live via Skype to 'the zone', an open space with 180 students, 6 teachers, gamified science, and a heck of a lot of learning!

- I will stream my own session, on 'teacher learning and the web', Monday 4pm (international time here)

- my colleague Coral Connor on 'Mathematical Matrix of Bloom's Taxonomy and Multiple Intelligences' Tuesday 10.15am (international time here)

/GAT Project/ "My Initial Thoughts", by Talar Khatchoyan

This is post 6 in a series about an experimental new learning structure at our school, with no program, no assessments, no teacher talk. In this post my colleague Talar Khatchoyan shares her thoughts thus far.

GAT: My initial thoughts

I first heard about the GAT project at the end of Term 2. At that stage it felt to me to be the undeveloped brainchild of Steve Collis. It sounded like the sort of project I would have naturally gravitated toward whilst a student because it offered so much freedom and time to pursue a project of my choice. However, beyond this, I had no idea what to expect. I cannot even tell you the exact point GAT went from being a distant possibility, to a project I had willingly signed myself to. My most coherent thoughts at those early stages were:

- I am worried

- I can t understand how it will work

- I think working with Steve will be an adventure

Now, four weeks into the initiation of GAT, I feel mostly the same- though perhaps more excited than worried.

So far, GAT has meant letting go of all my teacher-instincts and going with the flow of the students, of the course and of its demands. With each conversation I have with Steve or a student, I feel as though things are slightly more defined and yet, strangely, less so- which, is truly, the nature of learning. It feels something like the moment you first pick up a Shakespeare you haven t studied. You feel overwhelmed, excited, with a touch of trepidation because you know that what will come will teach you something new about humanity, about Shakespeare s craft, about culture and sub-culture, and a whole lot of other things. Learning cannot fit into a box, just as Shakespeare cannot be confined to one page. They breathe and grow and endure; they inform future learning. This is GAT.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid ~Einstein

I love this quote, because it is a humble reminder to me. I am reminded that my students come with their individual talents, goals and abilities. I am reminded that they are unique thinkers and that there are many things they can do better than I can. I am reminded that I need to celebrate their successes and recognise their genius. GAT helps me see this. I see students pursuing their craft, their learning, and their passions.

I think my favourite moment is when students pose an idea. We talk about it, we play around with it, bounce it around and stretch it to see how far it will go and then suddenly, they see that there is potential there. What they had thought to be a quick task, or a distant dream, has now developed into a larger, complex project. I love the moments when they are excited that their work will be published, read, accessed, assessed, by peers and professionals.

During our GAT session today, I spent half an hour talking to a student who had a fairly developed idea. Their project was to create a social justice kit to help schools in raising awareness of the issues in our world today. She had finished a first draft and wanted an opinion. After half an hour of discussion, she walked away with a totally transformed idea. We spoke about taking her project and developing it as a website resource for schools. We spoke about the possibility of networking with student designers to produce posters that could be downloaded as resources to be used in schools. We spoke about the potential for this to become a long-term project that could be maintained and updated to be used for many years. This is GAT! I couldn t help but feel excited with her as we peeled the layers of restrictions we often feel are placed around our ideas to discover the true possibility of our imagination and thought.

I'm so excited to be a part of this project. I love the fact that students are directing themselves and that they are learning and helping one another access resources and information. I can t wait to see what happens next!

This is the sixth in a series of blog posts entitled /GAT Project/ They will appear regularly at this website, categorised under 'GAT Project'. If you'd like to receive future posts, you can:

- click here to subscribe to Steve's blog in general by email, or here in a reader.

- click here http://www.happysteve.com/contact/ and indicate 'GAT Posts Only' in the message body - I'll email you when I update the GAT Project just for the duration of the series.

- or regularly check this link for new posts: http://www.happysteve.com/blog/tag/gat-project

9 Year Olds in a Community of Practice

A brief break from the /GAT Project/ series, although this topic is highly relevant.

On Thursday afternoons I've been supervising groups of Year 4 students as they discover our school 3D virtual world environment, which we run with free Open Sim (*) software.

Before we go on, whatever you do, watch the video below before you leave this page!

It is hilarious, and instructive, to stand back and observe the way these little people are enticed by the environment, make their own discoveries, and then share the discoveries with each other. Different students become experts in different skills, and are sought out by the others. I don't teach them.

As I observed the incredible scene around me, I thought to myself: this pretty much sums it all up for me. 

I quickly whipped out my phone and captured the scene on camera.

Listen to what the students are saying to each other (or screaming at each other!). Watch out hyper-engaged they are. You couldn't stop them from learning if you tried. They're unstoppable. 

And notice how they're oblivious to my presence. I'm invisible. They don't notice I'm filming. They're not asking me questions. I'm irrelevant. I've done myself out of a job. They're teaching each other. Every students is a teaching-and-learning node:

Once we've witnessed this dynamic occur, once we've seen what's possible, how could we ever go back to a teacher-centric model of pedagogy? I'm going to show this video to everyone I meet from now on, and say "Do you see!? What more is there to say!?"

In teacher-centric model, the teacher sets the agenda, then requests that the students become complicit in that agenda.

In a learning-central model, the students bring the agenda, and become complicit in each other's learning. The so-called 'teacher' becomes complicit in the students' agendas. 

(*) A collaborative 3d space, where each student has an avatar and can discover, communicate, and work together to build the world. Objects can be created, sculpted, sewn together, and programmed using code to behave in particular ways.

/GAT Project/ The Rubber Hits the Road!

We've had just 4 lessons in the 'GAT Course' and I am just over the moon. For new readers, the GAT Course is an experimental course in Year 9 & 10 at my school which we are hoping to expand out to be a 200 hour course involving every student in Stage 5. It's experimental, because every student is involved in completely different projects. Read previous posts to get your head around the idea.

When I look around the space

I see...

A student has already constructed a robot from a kit, but next is the challenging part: discover its design principles and then create a robot with similar capabilities from scratch, with home-made parts. I was skeptical at the ambition at first, but the student started describing how he had already made a mechanical hand at home with string and motors.

I suggested he run a hand on robotics demonstration class for Primary students later this year!

I see...

Another student has her heart set on writing a book. This very morning, she tells me, she had a flash of inspiration. She raced to a computer, captured the ideas, and printed them out before running out the door. They're on a folded up bit of paper. So now she's revisiting them; fashioning and forming them.

I suggested we establish a test-readership of 30 or 40 volunteers who could give her gut-reaction feedback on her story. 

I see...

The planning notes and draft document by a student passionate about social justice, and determined to take concrete action to combat slavery. She's recruiting peers to assist her set up a website, and is preparing a school-wide publicity drive to raise awareness and educate our community on how we can act to help the voiceless.

I see...

My colleague Ms Khatchoyan assisting a team to finalise their initial project timeline. They are bouncing ideas around. Her role, and mine, in these meetings, is to throw left-field ideas into the mix. What if we tried to get you on-set for a professional film? What if we tried to market and sell your product? What if we got a professional film director to give you some feedback? 

Ms Khatchoyan will be posting here soon with her thoughts, and I'll post student voices too. 

Here's the thing: as I scan the space I see every student engaged, eager to aim high. There is momentum, movement, excitement. They're focused. They're taking initiative, solving their own problems, getting on with the job.

It's every teacher's dream, and it works because rather than the teacher having to be the engine for everyone, dragging the class forward by sheer force of will and dogged determination, instead every student is bringing their own unstoppable locomotive engine.

And each engine is going in a completely different direction!

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts entitled /GAT Project/ They will appear regularly at this website, categorised under 'GAT Project'. If you'd like to receive future posts, you can:

- click here to subscribe to Steve's blog in general by email, or here in a reader.

- click here http://www.happysteve.com/contact/ and indicate 'GAT Posts Only' in the message body - I'll email you when I update the GAT Project just for the duration of the series.

- or regularly check this link for new posts: http://www.happysteve.com/blog/tag/gat-project

/GAT Project/ The Granny Cloud

If this is the first you've heard of the GAT Course (I haven't revealed what it stands for - can you guess?), it's an experiment at creating a school learning structure that is NOT programmed ahead of time, and is radically student-driven. One student is studying photography, another is writing a book, and another is running a social justice initiative. We hope to grow this structure to encompass all of Year 9 and 10 by 2013. 

New South Wales readers might ask me "Is it a Board endorsed course?" I'm not telling. You can guess!

The Granny Cloud

In my second post (this is post #4) I discussed bureaucracy and paperwork. I want the bureaucracy around the G.A.T. Course to be empowering.

I heard the term "Granny Cloud" at the MYSA conference last term. Using the metaphor for cloud computing, the speaker spoke of that 'cloud' of expertise and availability of retirees; of 'grannies'. 

I have interpreted the term to include non-retirees; anyone 'out there in society' with expertise and a willingness to share their know-how with students in schools.

Primary schools often do this well already. We have volunteer mums and dads who come on site to give individual support to students to develop their reading skills etc. When I was a tiny thing I still remember a mum correcting me that 'island' is pronounced 'ayland' not 'eezland' in a one on one session. Bless her for volunteering! 

In the GAT Course we have students with a variety of interests and projects. After three lessons, students have written up contingent 'project plans', which are very simple, changeable summaries of what they want to create and what skills they might work on along the way, with due dates to help create coherence and momentum. 

Meanwhile, I've sent word out to our wider school community: WHO HAS A SKILL THEY'RE WILLING TO SHARE? I've defined different levels of sharing: volunteers can sign up for an occasional phone conversation, or giving occasional feedback on student creations, or offer to create one of our online 'skill badges' (see last post), or run a workshop. 

Here is part of the google form they use to volunteer:

Their responses go into a google doc which we, as mentors in the course, can use to match to student projects. 

Katrina's Story

For me, Katrina's situation pretty much sums it up. She loves creative writing. She writes lots of stories. She writes lots of novellas. In fact, Katrina has already developed, by herself, the habit of carefully recording and cataloguing her ideas, and even entire passages, in a trove which she can then consult and draw from in future. She might write a passage that just occurs to her, disconnected from any context or broader narrative. She's intuitively realised that a subset of the creativity skill is the habit of treasuring and protecting all ideas without judgement, knowing that they ferment, and recombine, and may prove fertile ground for a new direction at any time.

What good is school, if school gets in the way of the development of Katrina's writing? She doesn't need a teacher. She doesn't need assessment tasks. She doesn't need a sequence of learning activities.

Katrina needs:

- an audience of readers who can feed back to her better information about how they are engaging with her stories.

- a community of fellow-writers, such as those that exist in internet forums, to support each other, egg each other on, applaud each other, and set the bar higher and higher.

- industry-level advice on how to get published.

- to attend local writers workshops.

- to teach other students writing skills and creativity skills.

- well-informed technical review of her best work.

As one of the 'teachers' of the GAT Course, the best thing I can do for Katrina is make these things happen for her.

Can you see where our Granny Cloud fits into this picture?

Last week, Katrina brought in a 100 page document and asked for feedback. I can't be the person to do that. I've got to create structures that allow the GAT project to scale up to 300 students. I have in mind one 'teacher' for 20 to 25 students. 

But now I can outsource the feedback to the Granny Cloud. In the Granny Cloud I have every confidence I can provide Katrina with industry-level advice, feedback, a passionate readership, and publishing opportunities. 

My first announcement calling for volunteers is only a few days ago. The first responses are trickling in. 

Here is a peek at the google doc so far: (no grannies yet, actually, but I love the term Granny Cloud so much that I'll stick with it).

I'm getting shivers down my spine just reading that now!

What will occur in the students' minds as we link them up in a collaborative alliance with industry experts? How will their horizons expand? The whiff of the possible? The sheer REALITY of their learning, with applicability just at their fingertips; tantalising, seductive?

The insanity of the school-bubble can be burst. This isn't an artificial institution, but a launch-pad of careers.

A Learning Village

Time again I think: our society is recovering from industrialisation. Industrialisation was our adolescence, but now we're overturning its artificiality and returning to mythic, tribal modes of relating. Tribal, but not regressive. Mythic, but not mystic; I simply mean a cure for institutionalisation. Wikipedia is a community, not a company, right?

When school is at its best it is a community. At its worst it is an institution. 

The more school can be integrated with wider society, the less of an institution it can be. A million ideas are now on my mind but I will say only this: when school has truly become a learning village, an integrated component of local society, where a love of learning is kindled and expertise is shared freely by whoever has it, then we won't need the word 'school' any more.

The granny cloud is a delightful step in that direction! 

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts entitled /GAT Project/ They will appear regularly at this website, categorised under 'GAT Project'. If you'd like to receive future posts, you can:

- click here to subscribe to Steve's blog in general by email, or here in a reader.

- click here http://www.happysteve.com/contact/ and indicate 'GAT Posts Only' in the message body - I'll email you when I update the GAT Project just for the duration of the series.

- or regularly check this link for new posts: http://www.happysteve.com/blog/tag/gat-project