THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION: THE BALANCING ACT

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THE DIGITAL REVOLUTIONTHE BALANCING ACT

• ISQ STATE CONFERENCE 2009
• Steve Paul
• Contec Consulting

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• There's a dark little joke exchanged by
  educators with a dissident streak Rip Van Winkle
  awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year
  snooze and is, of course, utterly bewildered by
  what he sees. Men and women dash about, talking
  to small metal devices pinned to their ears.
  Young people sit at home on sofas, moving
  miniature athletes around on electronic screens.
  Older folk defy death and disability with
  metronomes in their chests and with hips made of
  metal and plastic. Airports, hospitals, shopping
  malls--every place Rip goes just baffles him. But
  when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old
  man knows exactly where he is. "This is a
  school," he declares. "We used to have these back
  in 1906. Only now the blackboards are green.
• Claudia Wallis Time August 19, 2008

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• .... too many Australians are being condemned to
  less-than-satisfying lives by a
  less-than-satisfactory school system.
• ... As business leaders, we know how unprepared
  too many young people are for the working world."
• .... focused on our education and training system
  and how well it's performing for Australia and
  how it's performing for Australia against the
  rest of the world,"

Rupert Murdoch, 2009
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Our Challenge
if we teach today as we taught yesterday, we
rob our children of tomorrow.
John Dewey
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• We want to bring an education revolution to
  the quality of Australian schooling and as part
  of that we want to make sure that in schools
  right around the country we are getting the
  basics right. Because there is nothing more
  important than learning to read, learning to
  write, learning to do maths, these are the
  foundation skills for everything else in
  education.
• Julia Gillard radio interview at Gordon Primary
  School Canberra August 28, 2008
•  

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• What I would say to our friends in the teacher
  unions across Australia, and many are of them are
  fantastic people, is that it is time to arrive in
  the 21st Century. And that is, lets get past the
  name calling, lets get past all this sort of
  pointless debate about blaming someone here or
  blaming someone there.
• Kevin Rudd radio interview at Gordon Primary
  School Canberra August 28, 2008

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IT IS VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD

• The goal of education is to raise standards
  of attainment... to better equip children to earn
  their way in the world and play a full part in
  society by improving teaching and learning within
  better organised schools, with improved
  facilities, better trained teachers and
  crucially, more effective leadership. A series of
  tests at key stages provided information for
  league tables of performance which pushed up
  performance.....
• The standards story has many merits the
  goals are clear as are the means to achieve them.
  The field of play and the players are fairly
  contained schools and teachers. If we get more
  children into better run schools for longer, then
  we should get better results.
• Charles Leadbeater Whats Next? 21 Ideas for
  21st Century Learning 2008

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BUT THERE ARE PROBLEMS

• Recent improvement strategies have
  inevitable limitations. Between 1997 and 2002,
  the literacy and numeracy strategies in primary
  schools were among the most impressive of the
  governments achievements. But the rate of
  improvement has been levelling off. All
  strategies have their limits. Educational
  processes are complex, so the amount of
  improvement any single strategy can effect is
  small. To maintain the momentum new approaches
  are needed.
• David Hopkins 2006
• Sharp increases in attainment between 1995 and
  2000 in Key Stage tests in English and maths seem
  to have petered out.
• Charles Leadbeater 2008

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• KERRY OBRIEN Kevin Rudds promised education
  revolution was a key part of his election
  victory, an agenda that includes benchmarking
  schools and raising teacher standards. But a
  leading expert on education, creativity and
  innovation who advises governments and major
  global corporations says that most education
  systems around the world are still modelled on
  the needs of the industrial age, and if anything
  are getting even narrower.
• SIR KEN ROBINSON You know, every education
  system in the world currently is being
  reformed....The thing is that most reform
  movements are looking backwards theyre looking
  back to the old system that was the result of the
  industrial revolution.

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7.30 REPORT contd.

• Sir Ken Robinson You know, I cant think
  theres a kid in Australia who gets out of bed in
  the morning wondering what they can do to raise
  their provinces reading standards. You know,
  its about them and energising them. I think the
  problem is that politicians think its like
  bailing out the auto industry. Its like refining
  a manufacturing process. And its not its about
  cultivating individual passions and talents. And
  if we dont get that right, nothing else will
  ever work .

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CLOSER TO HOME

• Full cohort standardised tests have profoundly
  negative effects on teaching and learning, and
  the data they provide are not capable of
  informing policy decisions in meaningful ways.
• It is often assumed that increased test scores
  over time indicate that students learning has
  increased. However, it has been convincingly
  demonstrated that these increases are often due
  to a combination of teachers teaching to the
  tests and students becoming familiar with tests.
• Full cohort tests encourage methods of teaching
  that promote shallow and superficial learning
  rather than deep conceptual understanding and the
  kinds of complex knowledge and skills needed in
  modern, information- based societies.
• Student Assessment Regimes QSA 2009

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WHAT IS THE ANSWER?

• We believe the core of an excellent
  education system is based on talented teachers,
  strong system leadership, solid curriculum, and
  accountability for outcomes. However, another key
  component is the integration of technologies that
  can fuel new forms of teaching and learning,
  nurture 21st century skills, and prepare learners
  for participation in the global economy of this
  century.
• In addition to ensuring student attainment
  of core STEM skills, we have found it
  increasingly important to nurture the development
  of 21st century skills such as innovation,
  collaboration, problem-solving, and
  self-direction to help ensure success in the
  workplace. (CISCO -2008)
• IN OTHER WORDS TECHNOLOGY IS A NECESSARY
  ENABLER IN PROVIDING A 21ST CENTURY EDUCATION

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

• A lesson learned in recent years is that leaders
  need to be wary of designing a reform agenda that
  fails to account for the changes taking place
  outside the school gates. While education
  systems have been making incremental progress,
  learners experiences and attitudes have been
  changing radically and governments and employers
  have begun to seek out different skill sets.
• In both developed and developing nations, young
  people have become increasingly reliant on social
  networking technologies to connect, collaborate,
  learn, and create and employers have begun to
  seek out new skills to increase their global
  competitiveness. Education has changed much less.
  Most schools have yet to revise their pedagogy to
  reflect current trends and technologies.
• CISCO 2008

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• In the early years of this still new century,
  the role of education in the knowledge society
  has been re-affirmed. Educational facilities
  which provide innovative learning environments
  for tomorrows knowledge workers and the wider
  community, are more important than ever. The
  principles of lifelong learning, inclusion,
  integration, sustainability, connectivity and
  quality have become catchphrase of educational
  policy in all OECD countries, and those
  responsible for designing educational facilities
  are responding in new and exciting ways.
• In our post-modern era, new understandings of
  learning, influences of information and
  communication technology and the employment
  requirements of the knowledge society have placed
  pressures and questions on the traditional
  provisions of education. New purposes of
  schooling have evolved.
• OECD Report on Schools of the Future 2006

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Strategic Pillars for21st Century Learning
Teaching Learning
Student Lifestyle
Effective Efficient Administration - Business
of Schools
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Todays digital kids think of information and
communications technology (ICT) as something akin
to oxygen They expect it, its what they
breathe, and its how they live They use ICT to
meet, play, date, and learn Its an integral
part of their social life Its how they
acknowledge each other and form their personal
identities (Seely-Brown, 2004)
Learning in the Digital Age http//www.johnseely
brown.com/speeches.html
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WHAT IS WEB 2.0?

• Web 2.0 is a catch-all term to describe
  developments on and a shift in the way the web is
  used from passive consumption of content to a
  more active participation, creating and sharing.
  It is about using the internet as a platform for
  simple, lightweight services that leverage social
  interactions for communication, collaboration,
  and creating, remixing and sharing content.
  Typically, these services develop rapidly, often
  relying on a large community of users to create
  and add value to content or data.
• Becta 2008

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Examples of Web2.0 services

• Weblogging service providers
• Peer to peer file-sharing services
• Social networking services
• Wikis and other collaborative-writing service
  providers
• Collaborative, distributed-expertise
  encyclopaedia projects
• Online auction and trading services
• Customisable online radio
• Maps and driving directions
• Travel and accommodation
• Customisable new and secondhand online shops
• Online calendars
• Photos and drawing

• Blogger LiveJournal Edublogs
• YouTube Break.com iStockphoto
• Azaureus.com
• Meetup MySpace Facebook Twitter
• Seed wiki Fan Fiction.Net Wikispaces
• Wikipedia Jotspot
• eBay Graysonline
• Pandora
• Google Maps Mapquest
• Expedia.com Wotif
• Amazon.com
• CalenderHubGoogle Calendar Webcalendar
• iPhoto Google Sketchup

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SOME WEB 2.0 FACTS

• Facebook has 90,000 developers working for them
• Australia has 680,000 Twitter users (including
  the PM)
• Google has over 150,000 servers at 24 data
  centres
• 900 million mobile phones are sold throughout the
  world every year
• The number of OECD broadband subscribers
  increased 11 times between 2000 and 2006
• In 2006 there were 2.5 billion mobile phone
  subscribers (the number has increased 200 times
  in 16 years)
• MySpace, Facebook, and Orkut grew by 72, 270
  and 78 (resp.) in 2006 with 190 million unique
  users worldwide
• US teens spend 40 of their media time on cell
  phones, Internet and games (2007)

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SOME MORE WEB 2.0 STATISTICS

• 1,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO approx number of unique URLs
  in Googles index
• 2,000,000,000 number of Google searches daily
• 24,400 number of people employed by Google
• 2,695,205 number of articles in English on
  Wikipedia
• 684,000,000 number of visitors to Wikipedia
• 70,000,000 number of videos on YouTube
• 100,000,000 number of YouTube videos viewed per
  day
• 112,486,327 number of views of most popular
  video on YouTube
• 1,111,991,000 number of Tweets to date
• 37,000,000 number of visitors to Twitter per
  month
• 1,554,583 number of Barack Obamas Twitter
  followers
• 200,000,000 number of active users of Facebook
• 100,000,000 number of users who log onto
  Facebook at least once per day

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AND YES THERES MORE!

• COMBINED VALUE OF Google Yahoo!eBay Yahoo!
  Japan Amazon.com
• Pre-2000 .......2.6 billion
• 3/10/2000.......178 billion
• 10/9/2002.......32billion
• 11/7/2006.......259 billion
• Dot com crash
• Morgan Stanley

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• Teachers cant sit on the sidelines. We have
  to recognise that students use of technology is
  stronger and work from our own strength which is
  pedagogy. This means that we harness the
  technology and use it to help students learn
  thinking and analytical skills. They may know the
  tools better but we have to help them use it
  wisely.
• Solomon and Schrum Web2.0 new tools, new
  schools 2007

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Synergies between Web 2.0 and 21st century
learning

• Offer new opportunities for learners to take more
  control of their learning and access their own
  customised information, resources, tools and
  services
• Encourage a wider range of expressive capability
• Facilitate more collaborative ways of working,
  community creation, dialogue and knowledge
  sharing
• Furnish a setting for learner achievements to
  attract an authentic audience
• Becta 2008

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• The sum of these assessments is that
  traditional instructional practices have changed
  little despite the introduction of computers and
  other modern technologies. A class does not look
  all that different from the way it did a couple
  of decades earlier, with the exception that banks
  of computers line the walls of many classrooms.
  Lecturing, group discussions, small-group
  assignments and projects and the occasional video
  or overhead are still the norms. Computers have
  not increased student-centred learning and
  project-based teaching practices. The
  implementation of computers has not caused any
  measurable improvements in achievement scores.
  And, most importantly for the purposes of this
  book, computers have made almost no dent in the
  most important challenge that they have the
  potential to crack allowing students to learn in
  ways that correspond with how their brains are
  wired to learn, thereby migrating to a
  student-centred classroom.
• Understanding how schools have spent so
  much money on computers only to achieve so little
  gain isnt so hard. Schools have crammed the
  computers into the existing teaching and
  classroom models. Teachers have implemented
  computers in the most common-sense way to
  sustain their existing practices and pedagogies
  rather than displace them.
• Christensen et al Disrupting Class 2008

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Dan Buckleywww.camb-ed.net

• 75 of UK classrooms have an IWB
• 78 of teachers in the UK never use ICT for
  collaborative tasks
• 52 of childrens time is spent copying off
  PowerPoint
• Only 11 of childrens time is spent in school
• Only 38 of children enjoy learning
• 98 of children want to do well at school
• TEACHING IS DAMAGING EDUCATION

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20th - 21st Learning Environments
Traditional Learning 21st Century Learning
Teacher Centered Student Centered
Single Media Multimedia
Isolated Work Collaborative Work
Information Delivery Information Exchange
Factual, Knowledge-Based Learning Critical Thinking and Informed Decision Making
Push Pull
ISTE National Education Technology Standards for
Teachers (USA).
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21st Century Skills(the 5 Cs replace the 3 Rs)

• Critical thinking
• Creative problem solving
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Cross-cultural relationship building

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21st Century Skills

• Emphasize core subjects
• Emphasize learning skills
• Use 21st Century tools to develop learning skills
• Teach and learn in a 21st Century context
• Teach and learn 21st Century content
• Use 21st century assessments that measure 21st
  century skills

Partnership for 21st Century Skills
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21st Century Education Model
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21st Century Knowledge Skills

• 21st Century Content
• Global Awareness
• Civic Engagement
• Business, Financial Economic Literacy

• 21st Century Learning Skills
• Critical Thinking
• Problem Solving
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Creativity
• Self-Directed Learning
• Information Media Literacy
• Accountability Adaptability
• Social Responsibility

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Creating the 21st Century Curriculum

• What curriculum will prepare
• students for the C21st?
• What skills values will be
• required?

• disciplined mind (expertise in a field)
• synthesizing mind (scanning and weaving into
  coherence)
• creating mind (discovery and innovation)
• respectful mind (open mindedness and
  inclusiveness)
• ethical mind (moral courage)

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• Tasks in the Outside World
• Subject knowledge is applied within and across
  disciplinary boundaries along with other skills
  to solve real world problems, create cultural
  artefacts and generate new knowledge
• People respond to complex, ill-structured
  problems in the real world contexts

• Standardised Student Assessments
• Assessments are designed primarily to measure
  knowledge of school subjects and these are
  divided by disciplinary boundaries
• Students are assessed on their ability to recall
  facts and apply simple procedures in response to
  well-defined, pre-structured problems

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• Students take the exam individually.
• Students take a closed-book exam, without
  access to their notes or other sources of
  information, and use only paper and pencil during
  the assessment.

• People work individually and in groups of others
  with complementary skills to accomplish a shared
  goal.
• People use a wide range of technological tools
  and have access to a vast array of information
  resources and the challenge is to sort through
  all of it to find relevant information and use it
  to analyse problems, formulate solutions, and
  create products

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• People respond to official standards and
  requirements and to the needs and requirements of
  an audience, a customer, or a group of users or
  collaborators.

• Students respond to the needs and requirements of
  the teacher or school system.

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SIR KEN ROBINSON (again)

• ... there are several big bits to education. One
  of them is the curriculum, which is what we all
  want people to learn then theres teaching,
  which is how we help them to do it and
  assessment, which is how we make some judgements
  about how theyre getting on. What policymakers
  tend to do is focus on the curriculum and then
  they focus on maths, science, and languages, and
  leave the rest. And then they go to assessment
  and they do standardised tests, as if the whole
  thing were like pumping out widgets. And the bit
  they leave out is the only bit that will ever
  make a difference which is the quality of
  teaching.

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THE BALANCING ACT

• How do school heads and administrators design
  and administer schools that meet the requirements
  of NAPLAN and also deliver a 21st century
  education?
• How do teachers facilitate learning that develops
  the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy
  but also develops 21st century knowledge and
  skills?
• How do we reconcile the fact that, at present,
  for most schools, teaching is standardised but
  learning is customised?

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