For week 8 of #TeacherTuesday we are in New South Wales, Australia. This is now where I live, along the northern coast area, just below the Queensland border, below Brisbane - see the map below. In physical terms the school featured this week is relatively close to where I live - see the red marker on the map for the school location.The teacher is Russell, and the school, Ross Hill Public School, is in Inverell in the northwest. It is a New South Wales country town. It has a population of about 680 students from kindergarten to year 6. 5 - 12/13 year olds. Out of the 680 students there are 125 Aboriginal students. The school is situated on Traditional Aboriginal land and this is acknowledged at all school functions and meetings.  Russell is Gamilori (Aboriginal) person as well. Out of the 30 teachers, there are 4 Aboriginal teachers and also 2 Aboriginal education officers at the school as well.   Russell teaches Grade 6. He describes his school and students: At my school they are all English speaking and we currently we have a new curriculum coming which should have Indigenous language in it which means we’ll have to teach it to our kids at school. Last year I had one boy in my class who could speak five languages. But we predominantly teach in English.  We have 18% Aboriginal students at our school.    Poverty draws a line in the sand. You’re on one side or the other. It’s hard. That’s why I don’t set homework on a computer as I know some still don’t have computers at home, and that’s disadvantaging them. I accept it on a piece of paper. I don’t mind how it comes back as long as it comes back! Aboriginal kids don’t necessarily live in more poverty than Non-Aboriginal kids. It depends where you live I think. These all tie into what the union was fighting for - an education review to get all schools to be funded to the minimum level with extras added on for low socio economic kids, children with disabilities, Aboriginal children. That’s started and is being built into our schools at the moment. The battle’s still going though. The money doesn’t always come. It’s supposed to be over a six year period. I am actively involved in lobbying for this. I am an Aboriginal Councilor on the New South Wales Teachers Federation. It was the biggest educational review we’ve had for an age.   A lot of the class sizes are big - kindergarten should be 20 students - it’s big! You learn not to sit down! You don’t have a chance to sit down! And as they get older, the classes go up. I can have up to 35 kids in my classroom. So you need teaching aids - specialized teachers who can take a group of kids to give them a boost in literacy or mathematics. About Aboriginal people he shares: The challenges Aboriginal people face are still there today and we need to recognize these as a whole society, we as a people are still not recognized in or own constitution as the first peoples of this country.    When I was at school it was sometimes difficult going to school with non-aboriginal people as if I was in a classroom and someone didn’t want to sit next to me, I could be asked to move place. That was in the 70s. Now, some of those Aboriginal children have children of their own and in their mindset, education tormented them, so it’s hard for us to get these parents into school. Some aren’t exposed to the written form of English before they go to school - books and that sort of thing. They hear the spoken language but they’re three steps behind before they start. They’re playing catch up from day one. Some Aboriginal children don’t go to preschools. I’d say you’d be lucky if 50% of your Aboriginal children had been to preschool.  A lot has changed over the past couple of years a lot of the teachers have changed even. Their attitudes have changed. A lot of teachers still find it hard to teach Indigenous  children in the classroom. Not because they don’t know what to teach, it’s that they’re afraid to do the wrong thing - to teach something incorrectly when it comes to the Aboriginal perspective on something. They’re nervous. They want to do the right thing but they don’t want to offend someone. If they describe a country or a land and name it wrongly or the history of the country, for example. When it comes up in the media it’s actually really hard in the classroom. Because the kids know the media half the time faster than I do. They’re linked into everything! So as a teacher we need to keep up with all events and technology. A lot of Aboriginal students don’t even finish high school. They get side tracked. I was the first person in my family ever to do a university degree. In my state, you cannot leave high school until you are 17 years old and you have to have a job or apprenticeship if you’re going to leave before then. They’ve upped that age limit from 16 years. And the high school syllabus has changed to incorporate trades in it and stuff. High school 2 days, tech school for 2 days and work for one day. So they’re working and training while finishing their schooling. Quite a good move.  About teaching he says: The way it works for teachers is if you work in certain places you build up points and the more points you get it puts you higher up the transfer ladder so when you teach at the more remote schools you get 8 points per year, compared to 1 point on the coast, so it’s worth 8 years for a job on the coast! You can get a rent subsidy in some western areas. There’s an imaginary line so if you’re on one side of that you get an extra week’s holiday because of the heat too! A lot of the western schools have a lot of beginner teachers. A lot of teachers come out here because of the incentives but leave after three years, some not all. They come straight from uni. After the 3 years out here they go to teach on the coast instead and live and retire there for the rest of their lives! So there’s a high turn around in these areas. In my last school I was there for three years and had done relieving work before then, and I was the third longest serving teacher in the school. There’s such a high turnover so the kids don’t learn to trust you. It takes at least 12 months for them to trust you. There are scholarships now as well so you have to agree to stay for 3 to 5 years or give back your scholarship money. I wanted to be a teacher when I was at school because I wanted to prove people wrong and show I could do it. It took me a long time. I was accepted into university but turned it down. I was a lifeguard for 16 years. Then I was a teacher. I’m in my seventh year now. I should have done it 15 years ago. I love it! When I was doing my lifeguarding stuff I was still doing stuff for schools - teaching swimming and first aid. Still involved but not a classroom teacher.   Aboriginal education is compulsory in teacher training, but we can chose electives which are special interests. I choose a couple of Indigenous ones there. I did a double weighted project to raise literacy standards of Indigenous boys in a small coastal town in New South Wales.  It was confrontational as I pulled apart the syllabus to say that I didn’t think it was working for those kids - they were falling further and further behind because what was being taught wasn’t interesting to them. The syllabus didn’t suit their needs. It was too regimented. These boys were more creative, not just mind wise. I got them to learn English through drama and role plays. They got up and acted it out as they didn’t like to be still. The new syllabus has better cultural references in it I’m pleased to say. It has compulsory Aboriginal perspectives in it. You don’t have to write in words, you can write in paintings now, for example. I’ve had my students pull a story apart about the drought of the basin - a big river system here - and I got them to paint it with Indigenous symbols rather than write it. They’re using a lot of terminology out of there. We have to teach music as part of our syllabus so I try to teach a mixture of indigenous music woven into rap music. As an example I use a didgeridoo artist that plays rap through a didgeridoo! I interweave Aboriginal with modern, and I do that with dance as well, incorporating both. It is important that our children don’t lose their cultural heritage.A recent UNSECO report highlights the learning gaps that persist between indigenous and non-indigenous students.On a more global basis, this graph from UNESCO highlights the learning disparities. A recent factsheet from UNESCO tells us: "The difficulty indigenous children face is one reason for the wide gaps in learning between rich and poor students in Australia and New Zealand. Though these gaps are clearly visible in student assessments, they have not received sufficient policy attention, and so have persisted for a decade and a half. In Australia, around two-thirds of indigenous students achieved the minimum benchmark in mathematics in grade 8 between 1994/95 and 2011, compared with almost 90% of their non-indigenous peer" Russell shares a real account of issues confronting education in Australia:Equality of education for rural students and indigenous students compared with urban and coastal areas Access to resources - and how schools that have a lower socioeconomic clientele need more teaching resources - human and physicalAccess to technology - similar to resources - but there are serious inequalities regarding access to online resources through inadequate levels of Internet access across AustraliaTeacher training - The need to include indigenous subjects and raise awareness. Providing incentived for indigienous teachers is also essentialTeacher incentives - as mentioned in past #TeacherTuesday posts, providing incentives for teachers to be in a rural area, and to feel comfortable teaching there, is a challenge. Russell is teaching in his 'home territory' therefore feels comfortable. Many teachers in Australia will not, unless forced, teach in the country - a familiar story in many countries. What to teach! We have the Australian Curriculum being implemented from Foundation to Grade 12. This is a major step in helping to unify the country (a state-based education system also engenders inequality) and provide a common core curriculum. It also focuses on the capabilities of 'Intercultural Understanding' and 'Information and Communication Technology'. However Russell shares essential objectives to integrate different cultures into how and what you teach, taking a broader rather than a narrower approach.One of the most powerful statements by Russell, "Aboriginal kids don’t necessarily live in more poverty than Non-Aboriginal kids."reminds us that we need positive action not only for indigenous students, but also for all students across Australia who are living in poverty and statistically are not achieveing as well. This blog post is a contribution to Week 8 of #TeacherTuesday, a UNESCO and EFA initiative. I invite you to also read from my blog: Week 7 - Bangladesh: Learning on water with solar powered technologyWeek 6 - The Netherlands: Teacher preparation means higher learning outcomesWeek 5 - Kenya: Working to break the poverty-education cycleWeek 4 - Syria: Displaced learners in Zaatari refugee campWeek 3 - Afghanistan: An issue of Gender Equity the World Should Take NoticeWeek 2 - Honduras: Teach Students in the Language of their thoughtsWeek 1 - Malawi: The Struggle for Literacy#TeacherTuesday - background information "Find out more about theTeacherTuesday campaign: read the blogs and join us for weekly tweetchats with the teachers". Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

School in the Cloud Very exciting possibilities for learners across the world! tags: education SOLE global globalcollaboration sugatamitra How to Make a Twitter Collage tags: twitter education fun The Innovative Teacher: Twitter for Educators An excellent blog post about why educators should be using Twitter. tags: twitter education ETL523 digitalcitizenship PLN Code Club Australia Start a Code Club in Australia - this non-profit organisation provides resources. tags: education code About Connected Learning : Educator Innovator Network tags: connected_learning education So You Want to Do Mystery Skype? | Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension tags: education skype Twitter's New Profiles: Everything You Need to Know tags: twitter education personalbranding Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

This week's teacher is Shape from South Africa. She teaches English in a township just north of Johannesburg. You can see a video created by the BBC at South African teacher with a 100% pass rate - Shape speaks passionately about ensuring the children she teachers are preparing all the time for their futures. As well as the curriculum, she teachers them about home economics, business skills and how to apply for jobs. She also does a lot of work to make sure the children are motivated and have belief in themselves. This holistic approach to learning, coupled with a caring teacher is making a difference in the lives of many senior students as they complete high school and move into the next stage of their lives. Shape is modelling an imperative approach to teaching and learning, almost devoid of technology and modern resources.Shape shares her experiences and thoughts about teaching and learning:About teaching in South Africa: I was awarded the best teacher in 2012 for the whole province because of the dedication that I am displaying. This is my 21styear in teaching. In all my teaching I give 100% because I always take extra time. I give extra lessons after others go home. I remain with year 12 to teach them again, to make sure that those who did not understand, later do understand everything. Some of them are still struggling especially in terms of writing and pronunciation. That is why I am giving extra lessons. My extra lessons to help them catch up and to give them some things they have never been taught before.In South Africa you have to have a passion to be a teacher. Here it is not an easy job. In South Africa in most cases teachers are not seen as a people who can be rich or who can be rich because the salary is not good. You never have money as a teacher! So we need to see it as a calling. You need to compromise. It’s not an easy job. Not an easy career to be a teacher because there are too many learners to manage especially nowadays in terms of reprimanding them because you find that now and then some get involved in drugs, there are teenage pregnancy. According to the legislation we are not allowed to expel a pregnant child from school, we must take all children in school. It’s an offence to turn a pregnant child away from school. We need to be with them here at school and then we try to encourage a parent to come to babysit for them, even if a child went for a delivery after they must be bought back to school. It becomes difficult because now you must catch them up with the work they have missed. We have to keep track on where they are all the time and mark everything. Teaching must be a calling for us to do all the job.Some local issues: In this area, pregnancy is a problem because most of our learners they are children who are staying alone and some of them are orphans. Maybe in one year, in the whole year we might lose 20 learners to pregnancy out of 1,265. They drop because of pregnancy.  Most of the time there are more girls than boys in the school, by about 10%. This is just the ratio of the population because there are more girls than boys. In my class, grade 12, there are ranging from 35 to 40 learners, but in lower classes there are 50. Talking about working within the school environment and extending the learning: After grade 12, it is their final years and we need to prepare them to go to universities or colleges so I need to ensure they’re ready to face the outside world.I’m also involved in job/career experience. We invite companies that are the same as the career the learners, have chosen to come to our school and talk to them. They come to school and after we identify the children who can go to them and do some work to be familiar with the outside world. They go to work for a day as managers or whatever. When they come back they are able to tell us of the challenges, then the companies come again to give them more knowledge. There is a program called ‘take a girl to work’. We always tell them why it’s important - it’s because we’re preparing them for their future. We don’t teach each learner about computers as we don’t have enough computers, but we have ways that children can do research online, so that makes each and every one of them have a clue about computers, even if they don’t have computer classes. After school they are allowed to use computers. Our sponsor is Oracle, so each and every year we take boys and girls so they are familiar with the technology. Most of them they’re being employed after finishing their studies by these companies. We also have plenty of learners who are sponsored to go to college, who are from underprivileged backgrounds. They get bursaries. Already some from 2009 are working with those companies. Not a lot of them come back as teachers. Most go to companies. We have a number of them each and every year who are at the university who come back for training to do their practicals, but most don’t like teaching. We also teach the children home skills. We teach them how to cook and keep their houses clean, physical education, how to prepare for their futures. As an English teacher, I always make sure that when they reach grade 11, I start teaching them how to fill in forms so they can assist their community as well as their parents. I always tell them they are the eyes of the community. If there is someone struggling to fill in a form in a bank, you are the ones to help. We are taking them to orphanages so that they can go there and see how to help. We are teaching them to donate with old clothes, to make sure they assist the orphans. We also have a garden in our school, we teach them how to grow food from the soil. We teach them business skills, we have business projects. They learn how to write a business plan. We buy some products/stock and they sell them to other learners and teachers and take money. They need to learn how much money to take from people and how much to then save. People from banks come to assist them to open bank accounts so that they can save money. We are teaching them that when they leave school not everyone is going to be fortunate. Some, because of money, might not be able to leave the province, but they must do something. They can still go and volunteer because they can gain experience. I invite them to come and work at the library so they get experience to train them for their future. Some of them would like to be doctors. But most want to be engineers now, because in South Africa engineers is a good job, and chartered accountants opens doors for them. Now they are starting to follow that that profession to be a chartered accountant.Final words of wisdom where Shape reveals her true love of her students: Assure the learners they are important and they can make it. Then they start to feel very well. I want them to do better and I say ‘I know you can, I know you can.’ They start to believe in themselves.Click the following images to open a larger version to see full details: Education crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa The tenth Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Putting Education to Work, reveals the urgent need to invest in skills for youth. In Sub-Saharan Africa, over 56 million people aged 15 to 24 have not even completed primary school and need alternative pathways to acquire basic skills for employment and prosperity. This is equivalent to one in three of the region’s youth population. Around two-thirds of the population in Africa are under 25-years- old. In the world, an eighth of young people is unemployed; a quarter are trapped in jobs that keep them on or below the poverty line. As the effects of the global economic crisis continue to be felt, the severe lack of youth skills is more damaging than ever. To download the report and other relevant materials: http://www.efareport.unesco.org  Twitter: #YouthSkillsWork. This blog post is a contribution to Week 8 of #TeacherTuesday, a UNESCO and EFA initiative. I invite you to also read from my blog: Week 8 - Australia: Rural and Indigenous - Strategies to improve learningWeek 7 - Bangladesh: Learning on water with solar powered technologyWeek 6 - The Netherlands: Teacher preparation means higher learning outcomesWeek 5 - Kenya: Working to break the poverty-education cycleWeek 4 - Syria: Displaced learners in Zaatari refugee campWeek 3 - Afghanistan: An issue of Gender Equity the World Should Take NoticeWeek 2 - Honduras: Teach Students in the Language of their thoughtsWeek 1 - Malawi: The Struggle for Literacy#TeacherTuesday - background information "Find out more about theTeacherTuesday campaign: read the blogs and join us for weekly tweetchats with the teachers". Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

The 5th annual Global Education Conference (GEC) will be held November 17-21, 2014. Across the world many learners involved in global education will come together to share new ideas and encourage global interactions.GEC is organised by Lucy Gray and Steve Hargadon who set up the logistics and technology scaffold for the event to take place. They do this in conjunction with many passionate volunteers who help organise, moderate, tutor, and support all aspects of the live, online and free event.As in past years students have been invited and encouraged to participate as presenters and audience. The voice of young people in a global event such as this is indisputably valuable. The ideals of connected learning determine we must be inclusive and the need for better pathways to learning dictate we must hear about new global connections and collaborations. The vision of what I call 'flat' learning is that all participants have an equally important story to tell us, and it is important we seek out these stories and give them a platform to be told.This year we have renewed with vigour our invitation for students to present at the GEC. We invite students independently and with their teachers to consider sharing activities that connect you and your learning environment with the world. This could be through a designed curriculum activity, or a student initiative, or an organisation that supports students to connect, identify issues and search for solutions.This year I am spear-heading the Student strand of the GEC and would love to hear from anyone who is interested in putting their ideas and activities and achievements in global education, global awareness, global collaboration and more into a presentation proposal.The deadline for proposals is November 15 - but I would love to hear from you before then!See more details in the poster below!Contact me at anytime: Julie Lindsayjulie@flatconnections.com Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

The Possibility Post | Piktochart On-line Collaboration tags: digitalcitizenship education Turning Students into Good Digital Citizens | Global Digital Citizen Foundation tags: digitalcitizenship education Global Education - Math Collaborative - Global education Home tags: globalproject globalcollaboration mathematics education 7 Tenets of Creative Thinking | Edutopia tags: creativity education thinking Design Thinking in Schools: An Emerging Movement Building Creative Confidence in our Youth - Getting Smart by Guest Author - design thinking, IDEO, Innovation | Getting Smart "The need for design thinking. This movement to build a generation of design thinkers could not be more timely or more relevant. We are living in an age of increased complexity, and are facing global challenges at an unprecedented scale. The nature of connectivity, interactivity, and information is changing at lightening speed. We need to enable a generation of leaders who believe they can make a difference in the world around them, because we need this generation to build new systems and rebuild declining ones. We need them to be great collaborators, great communicators, and great innovators." tags: designthinking education Design Thinking « Design Thinking for Educators tags: designthinking social_entrepreneurship education Moonshot Thinking - YouTube tags: moonshot education youtube ideas Roxburgh Homestead Primary School defends classroom Twitter accounts for children | Herald Sun Article showing both sides of the argument for letting younger students use social media (including Twitter) for learning. tags: Twitter socialmedia education digitalcitizenship Students Learn Best When You Do This Want to know what kids need in order to learn better? Ask them: Here are the first 50 answers, unedited. From a study by Grant Wiggins tags: research education learning Symphony in Education tags: music danpink education 4 Big Things Transformational Teachers Do | Edutopia tags: teacher teacherpreneur education transformation The Teacher Leadership Competencies | CTQ tags: leadership education teacherpreneur techintegration MAKE BELIEFS COMIX! Online Educational Comic Generator for Kids of All Ages tags: education comic Social Engineering and Social Networking - Your Users are a Target Social engineering and social networks can be used to manipulate your staff into performing actions or divulging confidential information. Security education and awareness training help educate your users of the risks they face and the impact on the organization. - post by toyota camry Video from my @TODAYshow segment this morning showing off the hottest of the tech I saw at #CES http://t.co/c5OxZQc5 - post by toyota camry 23 Great Sources For Free Educational Videos Online | Edudemic tags: free education video Blending Face-to-Face and Flipping -- THE Journal One of the better articles I have read about the flipped classroom or flipped learning. tags: education flippedlearning pedagogy techintegration Global Students - Global Perspectives tags: globalcollaboration education Curriculum & Leadership Journal | Skills for the 21st Century: teaching higher-order thinking tags: bloomstaxonomy higherorderthinking education curriculum leadership ECIS ICT Committee eNews - Back to School Always packed with valuable information and resources for educational technology and more. tags: ecis education What Do Schools Risk By Going ‘Full Google’? | MindShift tags: Google education lms What’s the Difference Between a Flipped Classroom and Flipped Learning? | EdTech Magazine tags: flipclassroom flippedlearning education Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Altona Primary puts NAPLAN in context tags: education Australia test Framework for State Action on Global Education - The Partnership for 21st Century Skills tags: globalcompetence globaleducation education TeachMeetNZ - home tags: teachmeet education The 2014 Horizon Report for Schools | Global Digital Citizen Foundation tags: horizon-k12 hz14k12 education emergingtechnologies Strategies for a Whole-Community Approach to Digital Citizenship | Global Digital Citizen Foundation tags: digitalcitizenship education Fantastic Resources for Teaching Digital Citizenship Education in Your Classroom | Global Digital Citizen Foundation tags: digitalcitizenship education Five Good Resources for Teaching Digital Safety and Citizenship to Elementary School Students | Global Digital Citizen Foundation tags: digitalcitizenship education HookED SOLO Taxonomy in teaching and learning tags: pedagogy solo education Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project Macarthur Foundation 2008 tags: education digitalcitizenship digitalmedia Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Rubik's Cube: A question, waiting to be answered - YouTube tags: problemsolving education ideas Google social_entrepreneurship Visible Learning, Tomorrow’s Schools - The Mindsets The Mindsets that make the difference in Education John Hattie - Visible Learning Laboratories visiblelearning.co.nz tags: visiblelearning education facilitator activator Reading Writing Responding: #GTASYD 2014 - Feet on the Ground, Head in the Clouds tags: gta education Google moonshot Skype used to teach Maori symbols | Radio New Zealand News tags: fcge14-2 education Term one - India, term two - Spain: The school where students are continuously travelling the world - National - NZ Herald News Updates about Think Global School as they arrive in New Zealand for this semester. tags: thinkglobalschool education Learning 2.014 Africa Learning2 Talks - YouTube Learning 2.014 held in Ethiopia, Africa this week produced a series of amazing talks. Educators on the cutting edge! tags: learning2 education Africa Rubik's Cube: A question, waiting to be answered - YouTube tags: google gta education social_entrepreneurship Learning Common 2 Excellent example of how to use Google sites in a school community. tags: google googlesites education gta Creating Maps - mapsenginelite tags: google maps education gta Technology Improves And The Internet Expands But School Acceptable Use Policies Still Lock Students Out Of The Benefits | Techdirt The most enlightened and relevant article I have read for a long time on how to approach using digital technologies in schools that references the work of Scott McLeod as well. tags: education digitalcitizenship safetyonline aup Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

Google Thinking, Lone Nuts and Moonshots | Steve Mouldey Steve Mouldey shares his reflection on the Google Teacher Academy, Sydney.tags: education gtasyd Google Digital Learning: Google Mission Control [#GTASYD14] / Destination Moonshot! Justine Driver shares here reflection on the Google Teacher Academy, Sydney.tags: education gtasyd Google "Meetup" a let it go PARODY performed at #ACEC2014 - YouTube tags: acec education viralvideo fun Anybody can learn | Code.org tags: code education Design Thinking for Educators tags: designthinking education Google for Education: Announcing Drive for Education: The 21st century backpack for students tags: Google education googleapps Panoramio - Photos of the World tags: Google maps educationPosted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

7 Hands On Projects That Use 3D Printers -- THE Journal tags: 3dprinting education ECIS ICT Committee eNews - Heading into Fall Lots to read about and information about events to attend in Europe and beyond tags: ecis education Multi-lingual language learning and language exchange | Lang-8: For learning foreign languages tags: language education connected_learning From Lone Wolf to Hunting with the Pack - becoming a globally connected educator | Mr Kemp tags: connected_learning globalcollaboration education Lessons From Finland: What Educators Can Learn About Leadership | MindShift Very informative article comparing Finland with USA education systems. tags: Finland education leadership teacherpreneur svanschaijik: Global Digital Citizenship tags: digitalcitizenship education globaldigitalcitizen The Possibility Post | Fostering Global Digital Citizenship Ann from South Australia talks about her exploration of digital citizenship with her students. My favourite sentence, Ann, I really enjoyed reading this blog post. You have shared vital process material from your recent connection with NZ and also communicated student responses -also a necessary part of assessing the success and viability of online connection that leads to collaboration. My favourite sentence is your last one - "Global digital collaboration goes beyond research. We found out more through the learning experience of meeting and sharing knowledge." tags: digitalcitizenship blog fcge14-2 education College by Kids | where kids are the teachers tags: education onlinelearning studentcentred It’s About Learning - ACEC 2014 Cameron Paterson talks about his experiences at ACEC2014 tags: acec education Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration

My first ACEC (Australian Computers in Education Conference) was two weeks ago in Adelaide. Many colleagues and ISTE friends from Australia and beyond had shared their past experiences with this reputable event, so now I am 'back' in Oz it was time for me to find out more.This event blends K-12 and higher education in quite a sophisticated way - essentially there is something for everyone. I attended a variety of workshops, sessions and of course plenary sessions. I also presented one session and co-presented another. I share my notes and ideas here with you now as a way of documenting and reflecting.Let me start with my presentation workshops!The first one, Leadership for Digital Citizenship Action was a workshop for participants to explore three areas:Our digital livesOur digital responsibilitiesLeadership for empowering global digital citizenship actionConversations about 'My digital life is like......'Open doc for participants to share ideas is HERE. It became evident to many that 'global digital citizenship' could in fact drop the 'digital' as technology becomes more ubiquitous for learning.  I was very fortunate to co-present with Cameron Paterson from Shore School, Sydney. Shore, under Cameron's influence, hosted the Flat Connections Conference in Sydney, June 2014. Cameron, as a driving pedagogical leader, brings exciting and enlightened experiences to his classes and to the school.Our workshop, Global Competence and Social Change, was an extended version of a presentation we gave at ISTE 2014. Cameron shared more extensive examples and real-life student experiences while connecting with others for enhanced knowledge a out the world - the stories surrounding his connection with Turkey and finding the real story of WWI is clear evidence of the power of 'flattened' and connected learning. I shared examples for current global projects across K-12 and the need to foster social change, pedagogical change based on new teacher beliefs and attitudes to global interaction and collaboration.Resources are available online HERE.  Plenary sessions at ACEC 2014 saw Alec Couros talk about connected and participatory learning culture, Kathy Schrock share ideas and resources for digital storytelling across the curriculum.We also heard from Google - Alan Noble and Sally-Ann Williams about how Australian schools and teachers should be picking up coding. Perhaps this is already happening - but not enough according to Alan and Sally-Ann who shared statistics and put the fear into us all about the lack of computer studies in schools (!). I always believe this approach, although coming with lots of energy from Sally-Ann in particular, does not win friends.Two real highlights for me were these workshops I attended:21st Century Learning design - Making learning relevant by Pip Cleaves where real world and problem solving was addressed. See SLIDES.Open Badge Design - Every which way by Joyce Seitzinger where as a table team we created the idea and criteria for an open badge called 'Global Connections 101' (notes created from our sketches and conversations). I have as a goal now to formalise this and extend it to be a 4-step learning course where 101 is connecting, 201 is collaboration, 301 is designing or re-designing curriculum and 401 is implementing and managing meaningful global collaborations. (Based on what I do already through teacher professional development for flat and global learning)I did attend some 30-minute presentations given by Masters or Doctorate students. I found these fascinating and being an EdD student myself have another goal to make sure I am ready to present at ACEC in 2016. It is so important to be sharing research and new ideas in this way - face-to-face where the researcher can get to answer questions and relate more closely with those interested. I encourage you to review the work of Vicky Smart from Queensland on technological pedagogical reasoning.Finally, the networking with old friends and the creation of new friendships across Australia made this conference very worthwhile for me right now. I am trying to 'get a handle' on schools and teachers in different situations here in my home land....and not being in a school right now makes this more challenging. But of course being at the ACEC, f2f conference and through following #ACEC2014 and also by being a small part of #acceln with Roland and Amanda, I am reaching out to many educators, leaders and even students with a view to working more closely on global and connected learning.Finally, I have to share this fun video created by the dynamic duo (Amanda and Roland once again) at ACEC. Many of us participated in this as the chasing crowd.....'Meetup' Looking forward to ACEC 2016 - it will be in Brisbane, a lot closer to me! Well done to all organisers, Trudy and Tina....and Jason and many others who made ACEC 2014 possible. Thank you! Innovation, Leadership, Creativity, Collaboration