Touch devices 'back to the future' uh-oh

A website called bloomsapps keeps appearing in my Twitter feed as a recommended reference. So I took a look and was told on the front page that  "it is essential for educators to understand how to implement Blooms (sic) in the classroom using the apps that are available." Just why this is an educational imperative is not stated but it is linked to growing use of iOS devices in American school districts.


Bloom's Taxonomy and Anderson's revision, offer, at best, a set of considerations for teacher planning to ensure balanced cognitive provision. I don't believe there is any gold in there for looking at what children actually learn. A side note (not explored in this post is a general observation that I have about many educators focussing totally on the cognitive domain of Bloom's work and often not even thinking about the affective and psychomotor. Let alone the parallel nature of the 'top three' - see Anderson & Kraftwhol, 2001. Renaming does not show deep understanding of the revision ). But all of that is for another day/blog post.


Let's go back to the 1990s. Computers in classrooms (as opposed to touch devices in classrooms in 2011) were all the rage. So much potential and so much crap. Educational software was the discussion point of too many teacher conferences. And...having followed the #ulearn11 Twitter hashtag over the last three days I have a sinking feeling about the word apps being used in the same way. Too much talk about 'great apps', 'harvesting apps' and 'apps we must have'.


If the hopefully long dead Bailey's Book House and Milly's Maths House have not yet been awakened as zombies from their well-deserved graves by the voodoo priests of the iOS booster gang, then it is sadly not too far away I fear.


The missed opportunity often spoken about by Seymour Papert is well and truly missed when we consider money spent vs. learning gained from the classroom computer. 

I suggest that many 'educational' touch app developers also do not know how to do this. They try to re-create school on a touch device. How many popular touch apps are 'latinesque? or bluntly put schoolesque?  


Now we bounce on to the touch device era without much overt consideration of learning potential (and money already spent). Having touch devices in a school does not equal learning facilitated by touch devices.


I believe that if it offers children nothing up front then it is a great app. My friend Marco Torres often retells his 'oscilloscope anecdote' in his presentations. 

Marco makes an overlooked but important point. Schools need to have devices like iPods and iPads in them because they offer apps like oscilloscopes, decibel meters and voice/video recording tools. All things that offer nothing to a child without skilled teacher input. I want lots of touch devices in our school because they are a means for us to have the tools which we could never afford to have. From musical instruments to science tools, these are the killer apps.

The power of the touch apps is not in the digital regurgitation of flashcards and maths games but in the blank page stuff. A good school art supply room will never be stocked with colouring books and paint by numbers kits. Good school touch devices should mirror that. Produce, don't consume. Explore, don't be shown. If a child can use the app at home then it probably belongs at home (with the colouring-in books and paint by numbers kits). The challenge to myself and others is to make sure the amazing power of touch devices amplifies learning at school rather than baby sitting kids through school.     


But who am I to tell you what to do?


So.... go for it. If you take a look at why you have/want iPods/iPads in your school and if you decide that rote maths and spelling learning in a 'digital' way is for you then buy them. All you have to do is rationalise the expense. I find that many schools who rationalise the expense on the basis of engaging children in maths and spelling apps also have charters and strategic plans which promote higher order thinking and student directed learning. Are these congruent?  


Write this in your charter; We believe in B.F. Skinner's thinking around behaviorism and are investing $XXXXXX.XX in touch devices to allow children to do and have reinforced what we want to teach.
This stuff is great for special needs and IEP kids - go for it. At every Case Conference we can find an app, and probably should do so. 


But is it why you want everyone to have touch device access? Do what you will in your own school, but don't just plan to buy some touch devices because they are the flavour of the month. The 1990s words of Mark Brown come back to me "computers are not inherently good" and neither are touch devices. 


We have been through the painful misunderstood rationale behind the  purchase of classroom computers, then laptops, then interactive whiteboards. Let's not do another round with touch devices.


There is a very real danger that current educational seduction with touch devices will rewind some advances in thinking about the pedagogical role of ICT.


Who is currently doing the big thinking on this? The amazing Dorothy Burt is. Funny how the 'app' and the 'App' have evolved. The Manaiakalani Project is all about, and successful because of, blank pages rather than cute apps made available on tap to her community. 


And a big nod to Chris in Room 22 - a true creative pioneer in the digital forest :)

Full Circle

Rock On Waimairi School.

You did it and you did it so well. My last posting was 10 long weeks ago we left the school all fired up about a term of dance, drama and music. At 8:20 in the morning of the first day of Term Three the school was alive with adults showing the children how a school can become a centre of arts performances. The challenge to all was to create and interpret so that by the end of term our school could become the 'new Arts Centre' of Christchurch.

We did it. Here is the full programme. Our teachers and support staff really did give the children a stunning term of learning and creativity. Our Arts Centre Finale was enjoyed by the whole community. Enough with the words, enjoy the pictures. After ten weeks work the kids are the performers in the same spaces.

Teachers, support staff, children and parents all made for a great term. We LOVE the NZ Curriculum, and in our battered city we loved having an Arts Centre back for a day( complete with with the yummy food stalls).

Arts front and centre

One of the many things I love about our NZ Curriculum is the even and balanced priority we must give to all areas. This term is the time for the arts to be front and centre.

Our school-wide overarching question is 'how can Waimairi School become the new Arts Centre of Christchurch?.

Those of you reading from afar might not know that our city's formerly vibrant and diverse Arts Centre is one of the casualties of the earthquakes. So this term's big question has a special poignancy for us.

Half way through the preceding school term a group of teachers get together to undertake a review on the state of learning and plan the school wide direction for curriculum focus for the upcoming term. This year the arts planning team concluded that our visual arts learning is very good and needs to be maintained but music, drama and dance are the poor relations (in a classroom learning context). So these are our focus areas.

Our localised curriculum, called Learning @ Waimairi requires the careful selection of two verbs from our list which capture the essence of a learning area and need to be amplified. For term three we selected 'creating' and 'interpreting'. This is what the common school-wide learning is this term.

Next comes the individual teachers 'turbo charging' of any achievement objectives they select for the term using SOLO Taxonomy. Kudos to the authors of the arts AOs for arranging them in a very 'SOLO like' way in the first place.

So... with all that important, but potentially dry, planning done it is time to ignite the children's interest, passion and curiosity. If our school is indeed going to be Christchurch's new Arts Centre in ten weeks time then everyone needed a peek at what that might look like.

When children, parents and staff started to trickle in on the first day of term they found every sort of performer going for it everywhere they looked. At the end of the term it will be our children performing in these spaces, they have now been shown what is possible. And we loved the performers.

Looking forward to a great school term and to seeing the children as the performing artists Enjoy the video.

Compare and Contrast

As I have stated in many previous posts, the government is the government and being democratically elected they have the right to implement the policies they see fit. But today my jaw dropped as I saw the launch of the Government Green Paper for Vulnerable Children. Well done Paula Bennett, take a bow.

This is what New Zealand's government law making process used to be like. I love it.

There is a very big issue, the green paper comes out. The stakeholders, the experts and anyone with a strong opinion have a crack at it. Here is the timetable:

Step 1. Child abuse in New Zealand is an identified problem which needs attention so...

Step 2. May-August 2011:

Green Paper developed by a multidisciplinary team of public servants and others.

Advice and peer review provided by a group of academics and scientific experts chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman and a frontline forum including the Children’s Commissioner.

The Green Paper is released by the end of July 2011.

Step 3. August 2011-February 2012 :

Nationwide public consultation Green Paper

Step 4. May-July 2012:

Analysis of consultation.

Development of a White Paper setting out the Children’s Action Plan.

Step 5. August 2012:

Release of White Paper and formal adoption of the Plan.

Compare and contrast the education national standards legislative process.

Step 1. Lack of student achievement in literacy and numeracy is identified as an election issue. In the face of clear data that New Zealand leads the world in these areas.

Step 2. Pass Education Amendment Bill. Under urgency. No select committee consideration, no industry or professional sector consultation, no teacher voice, no parent voice, no university education research voice. That's all folks. Done. Law made.

There is a perverse factor to take into account as you compare and contrast the modes of operation (Minister of Education with the Minister of Social Development) and their degrees of haste. The evidence of child abuse is real and commands immediate action. The evidence of an underperforming education system is harder to find as New Zealand continues to top international performance tables. You would think one deserves parliamentary urgency and the other consultation and careful steps. Sadly it has been reversed.

Actually both issues deserve due process, and enduring and effective solutions require the latter. Well done Paula Bennett for getting back to the way that our country was, and should be governed. You and the cabinet have the ultimate say on what legislation will come out of the process but what you do decide upon will have had some good expert (and every-person) input. Can you pop down the corridor to share your methods with the Minister of Education?

Post-quake, walking the walls with even more admiration for our teaching team

I walk the walls. It is a part of our curriculum review process. But it is much more than that. This term, more than any other before, it has moved me.

In any regular term I always end up looking at the pictures and thinking "wow, I love working with these people." But this term I have to admit to a few tears flowing as I looked at the picture collections.

These teachers are quake-weary, tired and doing all they can to hold together emotionally affected children and families. And... dealing with their own wrecked homes and jangled nerves.

Yet they are delivering a stunning term of learning. Better than before.

Every teacher in every class is here, plus some of our learning support staff. (Missing the afternoon programme pics because time keeps robbing me of the chance to grab them on camera).

Snapped in the first part of the term (front loading) look here

and the second part of term, applying the front-loaded knowledge before children fly with their own inquiring questions.  Look here.

The wall pictures only tell a small part of a learning story, photos of walls don't show the rich learning experiences in action, but looking at these pics I am in awe of a teaching team working in a disaster hit city.

I love the close detail learning obtained from the simple things like the autumn leaves, the dirt in the garden and the clouds in the sky. The interactive learning centres and the children's voice screaming out.

Can't say much more.

TED Said...then spread

It all started off well. But then TED spread.

TED first came onto my radar in 2006 when Sir Ken Robinson made his moving, humorous, and influential 'Schools Kill Creativity' speech. Ideas worth spreading indeed. Since then the TED Talks have inspired and challenged me. A few of my own key ideas, decisions and actions in recent years have had their genesis in a couple of TED presentations.

TED is now very fashionable. "Did you see it?" "It was amazing." "Very Inspirational" The risk is that TED-hungry leaders, managers and decision makers will end up with the sort of 'doing it vicariously' effect which has gripped the world of would be cooks, singers, and overweight people.

The abundance of reality media means that many people who don't cook their own healthy food can now instead get some sort of solace from living vicariously through watching Jamie Oliver do so. It means that people who want to have an entertainment career can now instead live that dream vicariously through their favourite TV Idol contestant. Watching the Biggest Loser gives an easier sense of well-being than changing diet and exercise programmes for yourself.

Also add to this list: Vicarious parenting through watching Super Nanny and vicarious home improvement through watching Grand Designs.

We can become dumbed down and passive consumers of ideas, convincing ourselves that the 'hard' but good things to do are taken care of in our lives by watching someone else do them on TV.

So the now pervasive presence of TED videos, and live local iterations of TED events, offer us inspiration, opportunity and also risk. The risk of us becoming consumers of TED content rather than producers of new ideas. The risk of living vicarious creative lives through the TED presenters' lives.

Ask some fellow teachers, principals or other leaders about creative things they have done recently. If they respond by saying that they have watched a TED video start to worry. Watching TED is good for getting inspiration but it is not creativity on its own.

Produce don't consume. Force yourself to be able to list actions you have taken as a result of a dose of TED. If we don't make ourselves do this then, as leaders, we are no different to an obese person cheering on their favourite Biggest Loser contestant while sitting on the couch eating a bucket of wings. Watching Ken does not make you Ken.

Who is it that is teaching new teachers to write lyrics for Whitney Houston songs? If it is you please stop it now.

Every few months I find myself in this position. All I want to do is find an outstanding teacher to employ. All I end up doing is wallowing through a pile of edu-speak sickly sweet treacle.


Who is it that is teaching new graduates that a CV should sound like a Whitney Houston song? The lack-of-substance mush-crimes are at their worst from UC College of Education here in Christchurch. Graduates seem compelled to offer something called an 'emerging philosophy of teaching.' 


The problem with an 'emerging philosophy of teaching' is that it states the obvious and tells me nothing about what the candidate actually plans to do if I let him/her loose on a class of children.


"I believe the children are our are future 
Teach them well and let them lead the way 
Show them all the beauty they possess inside 
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier"


Give me a break. Without breaking any confidentiality by quoting from actual applications in front of me, they seem to say the same thing while at the same time managing to say nothing.


"Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be"


The missing components of so many of these manufactured sugar-sweet teaching job applications can be illustrated by going back to the old school Dr. Julia Atkin circles (as illustrated in From Values and Beliefs about Learning to Principles and Practice. Dr. Julia Atkin, 1996).


Since no one would say "I believe in a teacher centered classroom where only some children reach their potential and only some needs are met and parents are unwelcome" everyone has to say "I believe in a child centered classroom where all children reach their potential and all needs are met and there is an open door policy/partnership with parents." These nice words are the centre of the circles mentioned above. 


Sadly most job applications I receive stop there. They don't go on to say what the applicant's planned practices (which are congruent with their values and beliefs) are. A job application with the outer circle filled in will get my attention. The rest don't.


I could easily apply for a doctor's job by saying I want to heal people or an engineer's job by saying I want to build great buildings that don't fall down. The thing needed in those job applications would be some concrete ideas for how I might do that (the outer circles).


I hope teacher training institutions cotton on to these important gaps in the CVs they guide their students to produce.


And... one final point. We work with children, we get them to use crayons and picture books. This does not mean a job application and CV for a teaching job needs to look like it is made with crayons and made up as a pop-up book. Sort out the pedagogy/andragogy divide.