Earlier this week I had the pleasure of catching up with Judy O’Connell @heyjudeonline, @Seanfish and a non twittering colleague. Judy was one of the keynote speakers at the recent SLANZA conference held in Auckland. The topic of libraries and the 21st century came up and it has left me wondering, what and where are libraries going. In our world where we have been experiencing for the last 10 or more years a shift from information scarcity to information abundance how does a library fit in? When I was a child and a student at university, the library was the key resource for information. To research, write papers and clarify material, to gain access to the latest journals and papers, I went to the library. This is no longer the case…. Again if I look back to my education the medium was text. I could not go to my library (local, school or university) and access videos, DVD and non text based media. All that was available to me was text. Again this is no longer the case. The medium of text was also limited to paper. It could have been then in a number of variations, shiny, glossy matt etc, but it was still paper based. eBooks? William Gibson had not even coined the term "cyberspace" until I was in my last year of school. (1984 Neuromancer) I remember at school when we got our first computer (it was a compu-colour computer) and then our first suite of computers (which were used for applied maths) Commodore 64′s . These were not networked, the internet as we know it (Tim Berners-Lee World Wide Web was available in 1990) was unavailable. Again this is not the case…. source: http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/photos/Compucolor_1_System_1.jpg. If I wander down to my local library, have things changed substancially? Well, they no longer stamp the card in the book and shift it to box on the librarian’s desk, they have a computer that does that…. electronically. The medium is predominantly text based, but I can withdraw AV materials and access the internet. The surroundings are nicer and the emphasis on absolute silence is removed. In fact, my local library even has a small performance area that is used predominantly for the younger children to have the book readings. But fundamentally have things changed? No They are more fun, but they are still paper based. The stock in trade - books - are out of date before they hit the shelves as the rate at which information grows exceeds the speed at which publishing houses can edit, update and print books. You can withdraw AV materials, but would struggle to be able to play them in the facility, and if you can pay them the access to these playback resources is limited. The internet is available but are ebooks? Can you access and download digital media from the library at home, at work or on the move? (I know in some cases you can but is it universal? could you connect to YOUR local library and do this?) eSchoolnews reported on the 1st of July this year that all Korean textbooks will be digital by 2015 - http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/07/01/all-korean-textbooks-to-go-digital-by-2015/ - could libraries cope with this? Could our ownership and lending model that libraries are based around manage this concept? How do you return an ebook? How do you issue it at the counter? Who owns an ebook issued from the library? Information is multi modal, it can be text, audio, video, or mixed. It can be synchronous or asynchronous, static or dynamic. How does a library handle this? I don’t mean in the traditional mode of issuing. I refer to access in an instant, to all users, within and outside of the physical space to approipriate secondary information sources. To be able to call upon the video materials and watch them in a manner that is timely and appropriate, and to have these available ; to be able to audio, text or video conference with primary information  sources; to access in the prefered digital or traditional medium the wealth of material available and to then be able to take it with you. There is much that will have to change, if the institution of the library is to survive much longer. Not the least being the paradigm we have of ownership.

How do we find a balance between safety and risk? Between exploration and curiosity and danger? It doesn’t really matter what aspect of education we look at there is SHOULD always be this discussion. Curiosity Curiosity is a critical human trait, it is a core part of creativity and has led us to explore the highs and lows of the planet and into space, to invent, investigate and experiment. It has , if we use the famous adage "killed the cat". Curiosity is often linked with risk, and this is something that as a society we avoid. We are risk adverse. So how do we find an acceptable level of balance between risk, challenge, adventure, curiosity and exploration on one hand and safety, liability and risk avoidance on the other? Vzygotsky's Zones of Proximal development Source: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/graphics/zpd.GIF Risk and the classroom In the classroom we want our children to succeed. We also are now wanting our children to develop higher order thinking skills. But we have a caveat of needing success. There is a difference between succeeding and success. Success is getting it right, in many eyes its the high score in the test, the A on the report. Succeeding is the process they go through to achieve success. In this process they need to ACHIEVE and they need to FAIL and STUMBLE, for this will allow them to be critical, evaluative, and analytical. In failing they do something that is unique to themselves. The had part for us as educators is to balance these two critical elements of succeeding in such a way that they show their potential and reach it. In the classroom their must be risk, but this must be balanced. We must set tasks that challenge the student, that force them out of their comfort zone, take them out of the area of knowledge and in to an area of challenge - In Vygotsky’s terms the Zone of Proximal Development. Risk and Technology A second challenge we face and it to  is related to exploration and curiosity is technology. The internet is a huge resource that we barely touch. Often regarded with suspicion, because anyone can publish anything. Internet resources always seem to carry a faint stigma of unreliability, take the ongoing educational; debate over wikipedia. Is it a suitable source? Is it reliable? The internet contains materials that are unacceptable, materials that are degrading and inappropriate. Material that has no place being available let alone seen by young people. Technology has allowed us to completely block access to these sites and in fact restrict access to just websites that we have approved. Some schools in an attempt to keep their students safe have done this. They have produced a "white list" of approved sites and blocked the rest. This is a flawed model.  Its flawed because the student leaves the school and if they want to surfs these sites. The school may be safe, but the school has fundamentally failed in its purpose of education. The purpose of education is in my opinion to prepare the student for tomorrow, for the world beyond the school yard gates, to help develop the productive contributing member of society. The students need to challenge information that is inaccurate and to question its validity - this is higher order thinking. The students need to make moral decisions about which sites are appropriate to visit and understand that such decisions carry consequences. Schools are equipped to monitor and deal with inappropriate behavior in reasoned and measured approach. Where the consequences of the students curiosity, exploration and choices match the developmental stage of the students development and the nature of the action. As schools we must impart on our students the moral and ethical code that is the norm of our society and community. This must be more than just a set of rules. The rationale and reasoning must be clearly articulated. Then the student are able to make their own choices and corresponding consequences. I am I advocating COMPLETELY OPEN INTERNET? Actually no. I am advocating appropriate filtering and monitoring. Morally and ethically, what is the difference between the students attempting to reach an inappropriate site and being blocked and the student who succeeds. Very little. Both students have made a decision. However, one is exposed to material that can be damaging, this should not happen. But for both students there MUST be consequences for their decision.  We must allow the students to make their mistakes and learn from these. Priest's Adventure Experience Paradigm balances risk and success, failure and achievement. Source: http://wilderdom.com/images/PriestAdventureExperienceParadigm.gif Risk and the outdoors - Valuing risk The final balancing act is outdoor education. A core element of outdoor education is challenge. Outdoor educators model the balancing act brilliantly. Outdoor Education instructors understand the need for challenge, they understand what is perceived risk and actual risk and how to set the level for each student. They are unconscious masters of differentiated education. Curiosity and exploration are the cornerstones of challenge. The student is expected to fail, to get it wrong and through a learning process to eventually succeed. The students ideally should be in adventure and peak adventure, where their skills and competence are well matched to risk and they are able to grow and develop. In this zone failure carries consequences but the level of these is managed and suitable. This is the ideal zone from Vygotsky for learning. I love the definition of adventure that OPC uses "Any undertaking where the outcome is uncertain" The outcome relates to the participant participation, not the instructors perspective. Consider the adventure of a rock climb. For the participant the outcome is uncertain, there is perceived risk and there fore challenge to overcome this. For the operator, the risk is calculated and small. Actual risk is minimal. For the participant, the experience is challenging, exciting and within their zones of proximal development and peak adventure. As educators we need to balance risk with the opportunities for learning and growth. It isn’t an easy task. The easy route is teaching to the test, white lists and risk adverse education. The easy route is success at the expense of the opportunity of failure & choice. By doing this we remove the opportunity for personal growth and development, higher order thinking, and moral and ethical development. A final thought…. The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. Albert Einstein Source: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5147/5831196506_d8074179c8.jpg

It was reported by the Australian news agency ABC that 80 students at a high school - Prairiewood High School in Sydney’s south-west. The students were suspended for accessing and using teacher computers to access blocked online materials - namely facebook and twitter. This raises several questions for me regarding the teaching and modeling of Digital Citizenship within the school. The Core three aspects of digital citizenship are: Looking after yourself (respecting and protecting yourself), which includes personal safety  - passwords Looking after others (respecting and protecting other), Which includes social responcibility Looking after property (respecting and protecting Intellectual property) Digital Citizenship resources: - http://edorigami.wikispaces.com http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/The+Digital+Citizen http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Digital+Citizen+AUA http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Digital+citizen+Analysis+Tool To teach digital citizenship you must also model it. The staff needed to protect their passwords and access to their computers. Did they have a policy that saw the passwords changed regularly? Was anyone monitoring the use of accounts to check use or abuse? Being a digital citizen means the students are expected to behave in a suitable ethical and moral manner, but its not realistic to let them have unfettered access, there MUST BE MONITORING AND SUPERVISION. How do EIGHTY students gain access to and use passwords  - How was this not noticed before it reached this critical point? source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/197/517966692_d5e100b039.jpg available for reuse The students did not access illegal material like pornography or change school records, rather they communicated and collaborated using social media. Interesting huh. Not porn, just talk. Why are sites like twitter and facebook blocked when many students will have access through their smart devices (iphones etc) to them. In many ways this, blocking social media on the school network, is trying to patch holes in the dam when its collapsing. Controlling access to social media by use of smart rules like time based filtering is a better solution and allows you to monitor who is accessing social media, where and when. This brings this activity into the open, rather than being clandestine and allows monitoring. While suspending the students is sending a strong message, the number of students involved is indicative of a systemic failure, who owns this problem? The students who took inappropriate advantage or the school that by their action or inaction allowed them to reach this point Here is the article "Eighty students at Prairiewood High School in Sydney’s south-west have been suspended for illegally accessing a teacher’s internet account. A statement from the New South Wales Education Minister says the students logged into the teacher’s departmental computer account to access sites like Facebook and Twitter, which students are not allowed to view from their own accounts. The statement says no illegal, pornographic or student record material was accessed, but police were called. The 80 students have been suspended for four days. They will have to attend a meeting where they will be warned by police about the criminality of accessing computer material without authorisation. All Prairiewood High School teachers have now changed their computer passwords and have been reminded about following appropriate IT security measures." Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/high-school-students-suspended-over-internet-security-breach/2809744

Curiousity has led me to compare prices between the New Zealand Apple Store and the US Store. The price difference is interesting. Conversion rates as per westpac bank at 15.20 28/7/11 These are the prices taken from mthe front page of both stores for the basic model computers. http://store.apple.com/nz http://store.apple.com/us Product NZ store (NZ$) US Store (US$) Conversion In (NZ$) ipad 2 basic model 799 499 583.08 Macbook Air basic model 1549 999 1167.30 MacBook Pro basic model 1999 1199 1401.03 Mac Mini Basic Model 949 599 699.93 imac basic model 21inch 1999 1199 1401.03 Come on Apple update the prices to reflect the exchange rate and stop over charging US!!! This is disappointing, I Love my apple products they are brilliant but the price difference is HUGE.

This is an interesting report from the independent think tank - the New Zealand Institute - http://www.nzinstitute.org/ The report is focused on two proposals to reduce youth disadvantage. Reading through it a couple of things leap out  for me. Here is one that is critical "Successful education requires more than just turning up at school. If students are engaged they will make the effort to learn but too few students remain engaged at school. By age 16, 36% are reported to be usually or always bored and one quarter want to leave as soon as they can, or already have (Wylie, 2009, p.2). " - Executive summary This is scary. over 1/3 of our students in year 11-13 are disengaged to the point of reporting boredom. The report goes on to talk about eLearning as a potential tool for engagement, but states that elearning alone is not enough. I have to agree, there has to be a radical shift in pedagogy to accompany the implementation of elearning. There needs to be a focus on collaboration and communication, on higher order thinking. We need to consider to the assessment tasks we are setting, again I harp back to the comment I made a while ago… … any question we ask that can be answered with google is a poor question. The questions we ask, and in turn the learning experiences the students undertake must be higher order - creative, evaluative or analytical not Recall and simple understanding. Engagement is not just academically focused - we know that students who exercise regularly, who have a balanced and appropriate diet will out perform those who come to school hungry, who are unfit, overweight or inactive. We must exercise on a daily basis, we know that academically and health wise this is vital. Engagement means to that the students have ownership of their learning, they have tasks that are contextual for them, that they can see purpose and value in. The tasks must be relevant and have a degree of buy in on a personal, community or global perspective. Essentially there must be transparency. To keep them engaged we must also make the tasks achievable and realistic, assessment focused and transparent and feedback must be learning centered, honest and timely. If we too all of this, then perhaps we can change the poor engagement rates we are seeing. Executive Summary - Executive summary Full report - Full report Perhaps those who criticize Orewa College’s decision to move their year 9 students to a one to one program with iPads should read the research.                    

I am preparing for a keynote in a couple of week and I have found a couple of great statistics sources for some of information technology. The three I have found most useful at the moment are: The CIA Factbook - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html This is a useful source for general information and statistics about countries particularly, cellular and internet use, general demographics etc Facebook Statistics page - http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics This is a gold mine for information about Facebook and regularly updated. &50 million users, 50% active on a daily basis and 250million accessing from mobile devices Twitter http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/numbers.html This is an update from the twitter blog on accounts and tweets. Useful The twitter blog also had this interesting video embedded on it with different celebrities, politicians  and people explaining why they use twitter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AN4_N5N52U&feature=player_embedded&list=PL763343880E4FEDA9 The sentinel project is another of the web sites I like. This is a humanitarian site, attempting to inform us of events happening around the world. Using Satellite imagery and analysis they are highlighting areas of conflict, need, oppression and genocide around the world. http://www.satsentinel.org/ Another great source of stunning media about Humanitarian crisis’s is Media Storm - The videos they  produce will move and change you. - http://mediastorm.com And finally a great resource - EDUBUNTU - this is an education focused linux distribution. Its great. Available with a focus on different levels Primary, Secondary and Tertairy this distribution delivers not only an operating system but a suite of software.  - http://www.edubuntu.org/ Latest Distribution - Natty Narwhal - Download - http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/11.04/release/

There is a direct relationship between the level of use a student has in their personal computing device and the level and frequency of damage, misuse or presence of the device. This a trend that I have seen in many schools. Where the laptop, tablet or ipad is a core and essential element of the students learning, the devices are kept in good condition. However, where they are not actively used or required but the school still has a laptop program the level of care for the device is reduced. This is evidenced by: Increased damage to the device by dropping etc Increased loss by laptops being left outside classes, in unlocked lockers, on buses etc Increased numbers of machines left at home, the "I forgot to bring it" excuse Increased vandalism/wanton damage to devices - missing keys, cracked screens, stickers and written damage Increased theft due to lack of security While some students will always show poor care for their devices, and this is the reason why many schools will selected ruggedised, a general trend in damage or loss is an indication of lack of engagement in the program, lack of regular and meritious (in the students eyes) use of the device . When a student is asked to bring their device to school, to carry it around and not use it, it is not surprising that they do not value it as a tool for learning. Many schools have had for a number of years mobile computing programs. They are increasingly common as state schools, who have a limited funding base adopt these technologies and the price of education technologies tumbles. Examining damage and loss statistics and the presence or absence of the technology is a good indicator of the current state of your program. Spikes in damage or consistent increases in loss, absence etc should be considers as potential symptoms of lack of engagement or use. If you are making judgements on the success of your program, include the support data and coming to class prepared.  

Next week my students and I are presenting at a conference in Sydney via video conference. They are presenting to teachers about how they use technology to enhance their learning. The presentation will invove me introducing and concluding the presentation, but the really important stuff is coming from the students. They are explaining how they use technology to enhance their learning. Its very interesting. In class I use a variety of tools, we use: Google documents for shared collaborative documents and presentations Wikispaces wiki for within school and international collaborative projects Survey Monkey for surveys and information capture The usual variety of content focused tools to provide up to date materials Blogging, messaging and resource sharing is done using our Learning management system. The students were asked to come up with their own list of key tools that they use. The list did include wikis and google documents, but there were some very interesting additions. They picked these as there best tools: Google Documents Google presentations Bibme - the bibliography tools Facebook groups - to run the leadership groups and committees - Facebook is not accessable from school. Survey Monkey  - for their personal research for extended essays and Theory of knowledge Wikis Blogspot Content sites including Youtube,  sparknotes, TED, How Stuff works, BBC Bitesize, Wolfram Alpha These were the students selections rather than mine. Its interesting to find out what they use. There were a series of other suggestions but this selection was the most commonly selected. What I find interesting is the students selections while they match some of mine are also quite different. Theya re using facebook for learning, they are using blogspot in preference to our own blogging tools. They are using survey monkey for their information gathering and personal research. I have to say I am looking forward to this presentation. Its is quite strange that students presenting at a conference is a rare thing. Its also rather sad too. As adults, we expect and demand that decisions that influence and effect us are made from a consultative basis. When they aren’t we protest and complain, whether this is on a small scale  - talking to your boss or union representative or by marching picketing or protesting on a large scale. Yet how often are students given a voice to shape, decide and direct their future? How often are they abl to tell us what works and doesn’t work for them? Are they allowed to shape and direct their learning beyond option and subject selection. Interesting huh?  

I love seeing so many school starting to adopt technology and recognising that the use of technology can be motivating and engaging, especially in light of the "More ladders,fewer  snakes" report from the independent think tank the New Zealand institute - http://www.nzinstitute.org/ What is critical is that the presence of technology by itself is not a panacea  or the ills of engagement or more accurately student disengagement. Rather the technology is a tool or perhaps a medium for motivating and focusing our students learning. Our use of technology in the classroom must be DELIBERATE and PURPOSEFUL. Then and only then will the improvement make meaningful impact on teaching and learning. If I was to recommend a list of products for use on ipads in Junior or middle school I would recommend the following: iWorks pages, numbers and keynote - while these are reduced versions of the core applications for the mac, they tools will suit the average needs of the average user for word processing and simple desktop publishing, data processing and as a presentation medium. iThoughts HD - this is a simple to use yet powerful mind mapping tool Garageband - a nice and flexible music creation tool imovie - video production tool - this is great as the back camera of the ipad 2 gives nice clean footage. Adobe Photoshop express - simple image editor and free. You already have Photo Booth as a standard tool on the ipad 2 Mathboard and Spellboard - great easy to use learning tools for mathematics and spelling Comic Life - this is the ipad version of Plasq’s winning tool. An absolute must from my perspective PuppetPals HD - this is a great animation tool, its well worth purchasing the master pack of resources which makes the product come to life. The kids love this and it will produce great videos that can be exported. eClicker Host and eclicker client - this is a student response system that will cost you a tiny amount. Also accessible from the web interface, this is great and so cost efficient. (well once you have purchased your idevices to run the clickers on) Google earth - while not as powerful as the PC or mac based Google Earth Client, this is still a useful and powerful learning tool. the students enjoy using this and can easily and intuitively manipulate the tool. Puffin web browser - this browser supports FLASH (YAY!!!), so mathletics is easily accessible from the ipad (you need to use the menu to access the keyboard to type in numeral/text answers). BrainPOP  - my kids love this, its quirky slightly off beat, but it has great resources and they enjoy it. Video and interactive media resources. Dictionary.com - this is a great dictionary tool. Useful, I wished more of my students used a dictionary. Sentence Builder - this is a useful tool for english and language arts. recommended by an amazing classroom practitioner - thanks Harry. Play2Learn - this is a language vocabulary tool. Its fun, visual and covers a range of languages. Well worth considering for schools that have a foreign language program. I have to put in my personal bias here ALL primary schools should be teaching ATLEAST 2 languages to their students and the younger the better. There are more but this is just a start. What would you add to this list and why?

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