Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

Posted on by Dave GN

 

(or why the Head of [ insert faculty] is going to my hit me in the back of the head)

I have been prepping recently for my first every presentation at a conference. I have been lucky enough or maybe crazy enough to be giving a presentation at Digicon 2017 (http://digicon.vic.edu.au/).  It seemed like a good idea at the time (still does, just with a lot more trepidation and anxiousness), but I thought it would be fun to share with my colleagues, what I am doing with ICT at my school. Thus I came up with this (caution, self-promotion in hyperlink below);

BUILDING ICT TEACHING CAPACITY FOR THE VICTORIAN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES CURRICULUM

At Mooroolbark College, when the new Victorian Curriculum in Digital Technologies, was introduced we realized that there were two major hurdles to overcome. Firstly, a knowledge gap in terms of coding/programming; the 7-10 curriculum is based on students having completed the F-6 curriculum, which won’t happen for the next 3-5 years effectively. Secondly, where are we going to get ICT teachers from, that can teach this curriculum? This presentation is about one school’s solution to this dilemma; how we are training teachers to code so they can teach year 7s and 8s confidently and effectively, so they are curriculum ready by year 9.  This is my and Mooroolbark College’s story about this so far, and hopefully a forum to share our experiences with others.

http://digicon.vic.edu.au/sessions/building-ict-teaching-capacity-for-the-victorian-digital-technologies-curriculum/

I wanted to call my presentation “Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks” but was told that, despite being funny, it is not professional to ever refer to colleagues, even metaphorically or as an idiom, as “Old Dogs”, even if I love dogs. Despite this, the name still lives in my head, and now due to this blog, on the internet. LOL.

A week of holidays has passed, and I will admit that I am nowhere near ready yet. I have put in a few hours of work and thought on this, but I am struggling finding the words. My principal recently told me that sometimes, when it comes to ICT, be it pedagogy or teacher practise, people have trouble getting their heads around the concepts or ideas that I am trying to explain.

She advised me, that it is not that I speak to fast or use too technical language, it is that they (those who I explaining too) often don’t have the ICT knowledge or experience to put things into a context where the ideas make sense. The whole “context” thing is a new challenge for me. I guess being at the bottom of the change pile not the agent of change that I have become (not my words, but I will steal them Rach!) has given me a tendency to forget that not everyone has the same context when it comes to ICT in education. This contextual difference, is what has me stuck at the moment.

The idea of context is why I think, that metaphorically speaking, another Faculty Head is going to hit me in the back of the head. In all honesty, I work with a great team of Faculty Heads and I respect them all. They are fantastic people and great educators, without exception. But change is something that most teachers seemed to be a little bit hesitant with, especially when it comes to technology in the classroom. As I wrote this last sentence, I gained some clarity on the idea of context!

My context, is quite different to most of the people I work with. I am into Computers and Technology. They have always been something I have enjoyed, something that I have dabbled in. I am a geek and proud of it. I also find computers and software something extremely easy to learn and incorporate into everything I do; I look for digital solutions as a first stop to problems. I happily will spend hours “playing” with a piece of software or hardware. I haven’t read a physical book in a really long time, unless I was given it as a paperback. Every book I have bought for myself since the first Kobo reader came out, has been digital. Outside of ABC kids TV (I have a 4 year old son) and the occasional News, I stream about 95% of my media consumption. Coding is not mystical or magical, it just part of technology. My phone is used more for emails, messaging, forums and social media, than it is for phone calls. I have a relationship with technology, that has integrated it into almost every aspect of my life. In writing, this I have realized that I don’t differentiate technology from the analog; it is all a tool that I use with ease.

And it is not this way for many of the people I work with.

I guess I have some thinking to do now.

My Internet Addiction

Posted on by Dave GN

A few months ago now, I had a lot of problems with my home internet connections, which is thankfully was resolved after a week. My phone was also being repaired, so I didn’t have it either. To compound the problem, or make it even more interesting, we also had been having ongoing issues with my school’s connection, but this was not as annoying as my home problems. For me, these issues have really highlighted how integrated the internet, and more specifically access to it has become in my life.

I use it for so much of my communication, work and entertainment that when it is not working, even if I don’t in fact need it to do what I am doing, I feel that something is “off” in my personal world, when it is not working.  I have been reflecting on this experience and these feelings as of late, in an attempt to understand why that is.

Lots of people have written on this subject, and I have read reasonably widely of them. There are lots of theories and different explanations of this phenomenon, which range widely and differ significantly. In my own head, I have amalgamated them into my own explanation; it my opinion and is what makes sense to me. I think it is due to the integrated nature of the internet into my life. It is something, like my phone or my watch, that I take for granted. I assume that it works and that I have it with me. I think about internet access in the same way.

Let me digress, and use an example involving my watch, to explain. I wear a watch every day. I have for years and years. I don’t wear it when I sleep for some odd reason. I always take it off when I get into bed for the night. It is just what I do. Somedays, rarely, I end up not putting it on and heading off to work. (Yes, I forget it. I am not a morning person and even with coffee I don’t operate on all cylinders first thing.) When I first realize that I forgot it, a cycle of looking at my blank wrist begins. It drives me nuts all day, especially when I am not on a computer with a clock starting at me constantly. When I don’t have it, I notice; when I do I am not even aware of it being there. And the internet has become the same.

I have known for a while, that my phone is not primarily a phone anymore; phone calls and text messages are my primary communication channels. Email, instant messenger programs and Skype are my primary means of communication at work and at home. Pretty much the only one who text messages me is my wife and occasionally other family members; my communication with friends is via the other mentioned services, which are internet dependent. When the network goes down, I feel a profound sense of disconnection to the world.

The internet in the last few years (if 10 counts as a few…) has become so integrated into my (and probably everyone else’s) lives that I must actively think about what is connected via the web and what is not. So many of my daily services are interactions need that global connection. At school our learning management system is not hosted on site; neither is our email; many of our regularly used services require internet access. I am a Dropbox user; every file I create for work or personally, lives in my Dropbox, which syncs them between my various computers. I don’t think I have used an USB to transfer files between my devices for about 2 years now. My system backups are also on a server somewhere, sitting in a data center located who knows where on earth. I read the news on websites instead of physical papers. Hell, I even stream the news nowadays as it means I can watch it when I am free to and want to, not when it is being broadcast.

In writing this, I have realized that I am in reliant on the internet, maybe even addicted to it. The brief week I had no internet at home and intermittent internet at work was stressful. I was unwillingly unplugged, and it really bugged me. It was beyond a mild annoyance or frustration, and almost seemed to be like a mild withdrawal. Admittedly, I have no idea what withdrawal is like. I don’t think the days when I miss my morning coffees count.

I think I can say I am addicted to the internet; not a site or activity, but the connectivity of the thing. It is a web (pun intended) that binds me to the world and connects the world to me. I am an internet addict and I am happy with that.

Revisiting The Digital Divide

Posted on by Dave GN

Someone I follow on twitter, re-tweeted a post by @LeungAsh which brought up this topic the other day and got me thinking about it again. Back in 2009 while studying to be a teacher, I ran across the idea of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants (Prensky 2001). This then lead me to Dave White’s (@daveowhite) concept of Digital Visitors and  Digital Residents (University of Oxford 2009).

In 2009, he presented his ideas in a video on the Tall Blog for Oxford University. In 2011 when I stumbled upon Dave White’s ideas, I had already drunk the metaphorical cool-aide and wore my badge as a Digital Native, despite being born in 1979 (I was an IT teacher, damn it!). I proudly adopted adopted the badge of Digital Resident and continued on my way, thinking (and probably writing ) about it. I about to graduate from being student teacher to teacher and was intent on teaching Information Technology and changing the world (well a little tiny section of it, as my wife had already been a teacher for the last 4 years, and I knew what the reality of it was, or so I thought).

Then life got in the way; I jumped into the trenches of teaching, which was the followed by having a child. I became focused on developing my teaching in a hands on, why are they not listening to me way. I finally got a handle on that (on good days) when parenthood shook up my universe. 5 years on in 2016, I find myself once again exploring the education theory landscape. Ash Leung’s twitter post (@leungAsh) yesterday really got me asking myself “how has this idea evolved in the last 5 years?”

So as any resident or visitor would do, I did a google search. Dave White seemed to of answered my question;

In 2015 Aaron Davis  wrote a great piece called Mapping the Divide: Visitors and Residents on the Web. I found the above video there. He (Aaron Davis) summed up movement from the idea of Natives and Immigrant to Resident and Visitors elegantly.

I did notice something though, much of the information and discussion on this topic seems to have changed little in the last few years. I actually don’t feel like I have missed the last 5 years of this idea evolving and growing. I think that, my growth as a teacher and digital resident has kept me in the loop somehow.

Our technology has evolved and has become more integrated than ever before, but as people there actually hasn’t been much change in how we engage with the web. Yes social media is everywhere, but it it does not feel anymore prevalent now than it did five years ago, there is just more variety.

And this got me thinking. In fact it has triggered a whole lot of thinking. For me thinking leads to googling, which leads to reading, which leads again to thinking and so on, until I decide to write some of thoughts on this blog. I want to know how this idea fits into my school and how others approach integration of technology into the classroom. For me, it is seamless and without thought; I choose what will engage my students and achieve my desired learning outcomes. For others, it is a burden and makes things more work than before. The idea of Residents and Visitors, is very applicable to teachers; we quite literally can fall into these categories; there are those who use it when they have to and those who use it as an extension of what they are doing.