Mellons Bay Staff ICT Reading Blog: Middle School

Monday, May 11, 2009

Leading the Future -Article Review Middle Syndicate

Below is a transcript of the Middle Syndicate Quality Learning Circle with regard to an article by Carolyn Stuart, 2007. Generally the article was intriguing to read and provided in-depth analysis of the change occurring throughout the world.

We also discussed the learning was not all there yet with regard to ICT and others commented on the role of leadership to treat Staff Meeting as Professional Development for ICT. The comment regarding "walking the talk is critical to change" was discussed and a heightened level of excitement was generated.

In order to prepare our children in the future, they will need to be able to do a job that may or may not exist today. For this to occur teachers need to be up skilled and eventually all teacher planning will be online. Assessment information will then be placed online and grades will be available for parents to access as soon as the test has occurred.

Web 2.0 learning has revolutionised the teachers' pedagogy, with questions like "what do you want to learn?" in order to make learning valuable. This is engaging when incorporated with Inquiry Learning and ICT.

The idiom of "the world is flat" was acknowledged as an important ideology that has made New Zealand virtually closer to its neighbouring countries and further beyond. Links were made to the Teacher Only Day with Pam Hook regarding the importance to:
Ask the kids
Ask the parents
Ask the teachers --------What do you not want to learn? What do you want to learn?

This generates a purpose for students and clear before you want continue with the context and content. Linear teaching was previously taught and the ICT tools and Web 2.0 tools have created an edge for new learners in society.

New ICT tools have converged and web2.0 is growing exponentially. Students are now able to collaborate with classes in the next room, school and country in real time with audio and video capabilities. This is truly where the real learning is occurring and students are engaged and enthusiastic about the new forms of interaction and learning.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Assessing Key Competencies

Vanessa E said the article described assessment needs: those being through verbal communication. This adds a further dimension for furthering life-long learning. Assessment should be for the childs' growth and not compared to other children in the class. The key competencies are not new but the challenge for teachers is to place these into assessment techniques.

Assessment through group learning is important according to the article, but how can we realistically do this?

Nicki said the assessment data is not taking into account the big picture, instead a snapshot of the childs' ability at the time of assessing them.

Ingrid found the article interesting in the fact that learning is important both in school and of outside school. Ingrid also said this is part of the ongoing increasing ability of the childs' identity.

Hadleigh discussed the vocabulary of key words and sharing this vocabulary for other class members to build on.

Reading Summaries by Hayley

EnGauge 21st Century Skills: Literacy in the
Digital Age

This article shares a common perspective; the world in which our students will live in will be extremely different from today. It goes onto expand that our students are expected to actively participate in and through the internet and in doing so are establishing their own social norms. Further, it challenges us as educators with, ‘How do we, as adults, with the least experience in this milieu, provide leadership?’

It is suggests that schools need to define 21st century skills and recognise the need for multiple and varied assessments to measure these. The EnGauge 21st Century Skills are an attempt to address this need and support our students so they can effectively contribute to their future world.

In this article, the authors discuss that the digital divide is becoming less about access and more about identifying and providing skills for students. Skills which can equip them to live in a world where technology is bringing rapid social and information change.

Finally it discusses, that the digital age is driving change in the classroom; not only in what we should teach and learn [content] but also in the way we teach and learn [practise]. Our teaching practise is being aided by technology, it provides useful information on student learning and gives learners more relevant, meaningful and personalised learning opportunities.

ePortfolios
George Siemens
A definition: ePortfolios are digital resources which contain personal learning and teacher feedback. They demonstrate progress and creative expression to permitted invested parties. They are being seen as a valuable tool for learners.

An ePortfolios needs to be flexible, organized, displayed on the web, in the control of the learner and retrievable.

In order to introduce ePortfolios schools would need to begin to create a culture where students are encouraged to practise blogging, develop simple websites and store work online.

Self-Assessment through Rubrics
Heidi Andrade

Self-assessment is formative. It asks students to look at their work in progress by using a clear criteria, before requiring the learner to generate ways to improve their performance.

Rubrics supports student’s learning by giving them key elements to focus on in the form of a progressive criteria. The rubric aids the identification of student’s strengths and weaknesses and increases learning motivation.

Creating rubics with students can involve:
Setting clear expectations; this might be achieved by giving students a model of work and using it to generate shared vocabulary and a list of criteria that students analyse into a progression of performance.
Encouraging them to monitor their own progress by comparing their performances to the rubric criteria
Supporting them to revise by using their feedback from their self-assessment as a guide.

Assessing Key Competencies:
Dr Rosemary Hipkins

Hipkins that students need to be involved in the process of making judgements about their learning if they are to be active lifelong learners.

Hipkins suggests that we need to look at assessment through a different lens:
Performance needs to be judged in meaningful and engaging contexts over a period of time, where the purpose is clear and the feedback focused on supporting the learner to develop their personal competencies. The judgement should be made by more than one person and include the learner themselves.

Hipkins believes we know that our students will be living in a global connected world which will mean they will have:
· Greater exposure to cultures
· Ready electronic access
· Communication methods unrestricted by time and place or the need to be physically present.

What is new with the introduction of key competencies is the meta-level knowing or knowing about knowing.

Key competencies refocus outcomes
Creating and critiquing knowledge, not just ‘having’ it
Making links and connections to the whole learning context
Meta-level learning – learning about how we learn

Hipkins critiques the limitations of rubrics stating that rubrics:
Judge levels of performance at one moment in time on one source of evidence.
Apply to either knowledge or skill but not both or take into account student attitudes
Assess one aspect of a task and can not manage the whole context/content.
The learner is not necessarily involved in the judgement

Mellons Bay Staff ICT Reading Blog

Monday, May 11, 2009

Leading the Future -Article Review Middle Syndicate

Monday, May 12, 2008

Assessing Key Competencies

List of Readings

The reading, "enGauge21st Century Skills " was:

Summary of interesting comments

Blog Archive

Reading Summaries by Hayley