A good question is one that leads to more questions

Ruth, you write "What should I do, I wonder?" and I know you are not expecting to find a ready made answer.
And I know too you are not looking for one from me.
I realise, through experiencing it first hand, that there is a big disconnect between understanding and articulating the theory behind change and effectively effecting change:
I adhere fully to the statement that students learn best when they are in control of their learning. Yet not being in the classroom and not inquiring into my practice,  do I know how to effectively "engineer a learning experience that maneuvers the student in the drivers' seat?",  to effectively be a "leader of learning?". Does this make me a sideliner, a passenger, on for the intellectual ride, or a fraud even? I' d like to think not...

At Ignition-Emerging leaders, some participants describe environments which were not necessarily supportive. Autonomy and mastery, and how much they felt they had was discussed. I got the sense that their strong sense of purpose, the relationship they built with their students, the enhanced learning experience their students derived from their sense of direction drove their motivation regardless. I can portray you there.

For several years I have been my own agent, musing and discovering and having time, working on developing some skills I chose or needed to work on there and then, connecting ideas and connecting people, collaborating and initiating a range of projects. I might not be too wrong to say that your previous position allowed you a fair bit of this also. I have learnt considerable amount from digging dip in the intentions and vision of the NZC and I have this strong conviction that this learning can be made sense of applied in the world post school. This is what is driving me.
Being autonomous though has actually resulted in heightening my sense of responsibility and accountability for whatever I contribute to.  That is driving me also.

Along the way (the drive LOL!) I am learning heaps, and I have finally learnt enough about learning to learn that I can make sense of design thinking to try to create something tangible for the greater good, not mine necessarily. That is not going to be effective in schools directly. I have to look around this, with life long learning firmly in mind.   My rather unique pathways are not employable (no one has come and poached me yet :-)), so I am currently working very hard at identifying why I am passionate about everyone realising their potential. That may give me a tangible solution for what I can offer concretely that will fill a gap, a solution that has not been thought of before!
What I am trying to say by writing this "me story" is that you have choices: you have a strong sense of self, you have creativity, knowledge, interests, resources, a support network. Swimming against the current is not sustainable, and you are not a fitness fanatic!  What were the contexts in which you have been employed that allowed you to be in "your Ken Robinson element"? How long ago? Would that still apply now? How do you offer to effect change? How much do we have to take into account the people (this may interest you) ? How do you describe your attributes for being a "leader of learning?"  What is your why?

Your questions led to plenty more questions back. It was not so hard to put some here: they are the very one I am considering at the moment also.

PS: A while ago I read that to attend an often over subscribed TEDx event, you need to apply stating what you hope to get out of it and how you are trying to change the world. Start applying now for your chance to see Sir Ken next time!

A Rattie encounter

Well, here we are finally, although I'm not sure why it didn't work the first time as I did nothing different except upload the file from my desktop after dragging it there from iphoto. It was a .mov file. Ours not to wonder why.
This is one of the puppet dialogues performed by Year 5 students (9 year olds). They all had a lot of fun making these dialogues and although it was a crowd control marathon, it was worth it in terms of the satisfaction the students derived from seeing themselves perform. One little boy who was convinced he'd be no good at it stepped boldly up to the plate and delivered after a bit of extra encouragement and help. I was delighted.

A bit of affective soul-searching

Coucou Madame,

Once again I find myself in a very self-reflective frame of mind. Its seems to be a game of two steps forward (or probably one and a half) and one step back as I blunder my way through the year. It's interesting after years - decades - of feeling reasonably competent and valued professionally, to feel so demoralised by half a year back in the classroom.

It's not all bad - far from it. I feel I have established a good rapport and mutual trust with most of my students but it's the criticism and the way it reaches one's ears that tend to eat away at ones self-confidence. Last thing today, just as I was leaving, I learned from my HOD that she had just been summoned to a meeting where one of my students and her mother were putting a case to the Principal to be moved out of my class 'because she wasn't learning anything from Mrs Bourchier.' I am struggling to keep a sense of proportion, as this is not an isolated criticism. I must be failing to do quite a few things 'right'. Is it a communication deficit, I wonder? I'm not used to feeling so under surveillance. It would be so much more productive if students approached me directly with their grievances rather than my finding out from the Principal via my poor HOD. It makes me think of the French education system and the effect of negative feedback on student learning. It makes you feel off-side and 'anti' and, well, 'nulle', not to put too fine a point on it. And the effect of feeling 'nulle' is that your creativity dries up and you suffer more mental confusion. You become to some extent the person the critics are depicting. Such is the power of a negative (or positive) affective climate, not only in your workplace but in any walk of life. To perform well you have to feel that you have been invested with trust from your management and your colleagues as well as from your students, just as to operate successfully in any relationship there has to be a high degree of good-will and mutual respect.

As you're aware, the students at my school are not strong on autonomy and tend to place the responsibility for the success of their learning squarely on the shoulders of the teacher. It's a heavy yoke to bear, as increasingly the evidence of learning requires more of them than just producing the facts. They need to think, process and infer - skills that they are slow to develop and adopt. I feel I'm working at odds with my NZC-imbued ethos, encouraging as it does, collaboration, connectedness and self-management skills.

Would I be more effective in a different type of establishment, I ask myself? Maybe not.  I recognise that the way I am is somewhat at odds with the classic profile of a teacher. I'm not particularly assertive and this creates problems with students who are used to responding to external discipline rather than internal. The trouble is I don't really believe any more that corralling students in a classroom is the most effective way to foster their learning. I have a high tolerance of what other teachers might regard as 'transgressions'. I don't like imposing my will on anyone. Ergo I have difficulty saying 'do this or else' because for me the penalty for not doing something is missing out on the learning. I have the greatest difficulty with students who feel they're doing things for me rather than for their own learning - those students who won't lift a finger until you impose a deadline, then squeal because you haven't given them enough warning.  The stakes are high, in spite of the NZCs pronouncement that there shouldn't be undue emphasis placed on high-stakes assessment. The whole school seems to be geared to individual success or team success in the case of extra-curricular activities. In any case, it's success at the expense of someone else's failure. That's what I find so hard to accept being non-competitive and inclusive by nature.

In short, I'm not in my Ken Robinson element. I know that there are teaching/learning contexts where I have in the past felt totally in my element. What's changed? I know I have. The frustration lies in not being able to be fully myself, in feeling I am leading a fraudulent professional existence.
The majority of this term has been taken up with preparation for assessment, assessment, post assessment, catching up with people who were absent for the assessment and now writing reports based on performance in the said assessment. Coupled with encroachment on ones teaching time of extended assemblies, students out of class for a plethora of activities, illness etc - it's hard to see where there is space left for real reflection - worthwhile learning.

What should I do, I wonder? How long can I continue to swim against the current? It's interesting to realise the importance of the affective climate in teaching and learning. Can I eventually make a difference, if I'm prepared to hang on until I've 'established my credibility'? This year so far reminds me of another year that I spent in a single-sex school in the 90s and which I remember as my least happy professional year. When I analyse why, the reasons are very similar - lack of professional trust, feeling of being under surveillance, deep conservatism and suspicion of innovative practices.

There are some silver linings to these clouds of negativity. My department and HOD are wonderfully supportive and collegial. They and most of the students are what make it still worthwhile getting out of bed for.

Ps. I've tried to upload some of our puppet dialogues, which the students love doing, but so far the upload has failed. BTTDB !!

Learning is all around!

I have the opportunity to meet with a group of secondary teachers tomorrow morning over breakfast. These teachers have indicated their interest in looking at what IT can enable for their students and joined this group, which is a Priority One initiative through the INSTEP programme. The programme provides valuable links between businesses, which indicate their needs and local secondary schools, which request information about local businesses. This group, called the "IT Enablers group", is meeting for the second time and is made up of teachers from a range of learning areas, but mainly from Digital Technology.
To start with Joy Cottle ( Institute of IT Professional ) will present the ICT Connect Programme, linking schools and ICT Professionals to inspire students to consider a career in ICT. I have heard of the programme, and I particularly look forward to find out how it works.
The other aspect of the meeting is to establish something easy for teachers in the group to connect and communicate about their ideas and experience with enabling students to be confident ICT users.
Steven Vincent (TechnologyWise) will then present a tool to support this communication.
What I will try to do, with the short presentation that follows, is to highlight the benefits of every day technology to share ideas and experience, to continue conversations around a common purpose and to grow a support learning network from within the group. I will talk about how I have grown to extend my support network beyond geographical and learning area vicinities, and relied on social media and groups and forums to further my knowledge, understanding, experience and opportunities. I would be very happy to add members of this group in my PLN.
This short presentation will be preceded by and followed a conversation around establishing common goals and what participants already do to go and get information and ideas and what they would like to see as a first outcome of their commitment to the group.

Preparing for this led me to think about the people and groups in my PLN. I came up with this diagram to try to capture not only my level of connection but also to take a snapshot of who I turn to today for information and ideas, where/who I get inspiration from.
I could have done better and linked the people/communities to their online presence, but playing with Lucidchart was enough novelty for me today!
 I notice from the diagramme:
- Pedagogy, eportfolio, digital identity and capability feature quite highly
- The closer circles are where I feel the most comfortable contributing.
- There are a range of people in this circle who have seriously influenced the way I think about learning.
- There are many other people in my PLN, but this is a snapshot and who/what community came to mind without intending to be comprehensive!

I am not that visual...

Many are trying to establish a definition of what an ePortfolio actually is. And describing the nature, scope and meaning of ePortfolio will be done in relation with who establishes this definition for what context. I particularly liked this introduction to ePortfolio for students at Victoria Uni.
One comment written by Sarah Stewart on an anti ePortfolio blog post steered me towards picking an other lense to consider ePortfolio. She wrote "ePortfolio is what you want it to be!" Yeah!
I decided to drop (for now!) the institutionalised lense (education context, assessment, evaluation, measured improved outcomes, definition, implementation, eportfolio system...) and to focus on the individual ePortfolio owner* whoever that may be at any time of their life. Folios are life wide and life long and need to be considered from the user's perspective, who is a curious self motivated autonomous proactive agent of his/own learning (coming from a school near us soon!)
I came across this Guide to Digital Portfolio and I liked its presentation format. Maybe because it is flat and linear and that it caught my eye is a reflection of my limited ability to think differently :-)? I would like to master Prezi so that I convey my thoughts and experience about things through using it, but so far my attempts have left me disappointed in the result. I need to work on why? (and suggestions to guide this reflection are welcome!)
Anyhow this is my attempt at describing what an ePortfolio is. For me. Work in progress.

* Bloggers keep blogs, need to think of a name for a person who keeps an ePortfolio...

SOLE

As I wade through marking a large pile of mid-year exam papers reflecting a form of assessment that I no longer believe in (if I ever did, which I doubt!),  it is nice to take a breath and be led, via Twitter (well, via my email notification of Twitter, to be exact, as I'm not the world's most avid twitterite, am I?) to an interview by Steve Wheeler with Sugata Mitra, and thence to the latter's TED Talk on YouTube, which was posted, I see, in February.
You'd probably seen it before, but you may remember that I played his 'hole in the wall' experiment TED talk at the Long Weekend d'Immersion in 2011 as I think it speaks volumes about learning and motivation.  The latest TED talk is a summary of his previous work and his vision for the future of learning. What he says really resonates with me as it calls into question the whole structure of western education, the role of teachers and the relevance of schools in their present form. It's easy to see why some feel threatened by his approach as, if he's right, then teaching as we know it could go the way of the dinosaurs.
He presents what he calls the SOLE (Self-Organised Learning Environment) for which the only requirements are BROADBAND, COLLABORATION and ENCOURAGEMENT.
He says "We need to look at learning as the product of educational self-organisation. If we allow the educational process to self-organise then learning emerges. It's not about MAKING learning happen, it's about LETTING it happen. The teacher sets the process in motion and then stands back in awe and watches learning happen." I can really relate to this as I don't think anyone has ever successfully MADE me learn anything. I have, of course, 'learned' a heap of things out of obligation, but any deep, real learning I have done over the years has had a large element of self-organisation. It can be random and punctuated by fertile and fallow periods but it's been a largely effective process of action and reflection dictated by my own curiosity, interest, needs and head-space. Two key factors, which I've mentioned many times, are MOTIVATION and CHOICE.
Sugata Mitra ends with "I think we need a curriculum of big questions". Some would go further and suggest that those big questions should ideally be generated by the students themselves rather than the teacher.
I like his 'granny cloud' initative which links older people with time and expertise to young learners, via Skype. That's something I'd be interested in getting involved with once I hang up my official boots. It's not dissimilar to some of the things we've done on Blackboard Collaborate with L'Ecole Hors les Murs. I love that 'hands across the water' stuff.
Now, how's that for a productive procrastination of exam marking?
^. .^
=+=

A week of two halves!

France is in New Zealand for three test matches against the All Blacks at the moment. Typically it means intense rugby watching. Succession of high highs: admiration, exhilaration, discovery of talents, enthusiasm, connections, cheering, a win... Intermittently interspersed by low lows: indecisions, refs' decision, frustration, lack of direction, a loss! And that is pretty much the story of my week!

While there has been some talk since December that some ongoing community support for MyPortfolio has received funding, and I have been asked what I could contribute to this, things are only lifted slowly of the ground. I am not waiting. I am thinking.
Why am I so passionate about this ePortfolio thing? ePorfolio is about learning, is about learning to learn, is about life long learning. It is about gathering one's own evidence of learning, organising it, reflecting on it, sharing it. It is about keeping traces, it is about readying oneself for opportunities. This happens best if the eportfolio is building out of purpose, powered with drive,  by individuals who make choices, are proactive about their own learning and have an understanding of the power of sharing, who have embedded reflection as a way of being. Along the way, the eportfolio user develops digital skills, digital literacy and a digital identity. In becoming agent of their learning, they proof themselves against the unknown an ever changing world is putting in front of them.  They have at the ready,  evidence of who they are as a student or professional, of what they can contribute and of their reflections on how to go about it. They understand qualifications is the What, ePortfolio is the Why and the How. And they understand it is what makes them stand out from the crowd: the Why is deeply individualised and the How is much personalised.

How have I drawn this picture of the ePortfolio user? Working with teachers and students and developing my knowledge and my understanding of the New Zealand Curriculum. This awesome picture is stuff from the world of Education. It's extremely good stuff. It is education talk. Is it heard, and understood, beyond that realm at all? Are employers, recruiters, business owners, professionals ready to pay attention to the potential a 21st century learner with an ePortfolio and to leverage what 21st century learning can bring them and their organisations?
If we spend time with students in schools learning to develop an ePortfolio approach, the best way to make it an authentic learning experience for them is that they see it has a value beyond formal education, that it is not merely something one does in French or Art.
If an ePortfolio succeeds in conveying this extremely good stuff about its owner as self directed, reflective, connected, how is this presented, explained, experienced to society at large?
I spent much of the last couple of weeks continuing to "meet" people, some synchronously but remotely, like Diana Ayling, who researches at tertiary level with interest in developing human potential, some asynchronously through their published work, like Philippe Gauthier who has compiled a Why and How to the ePortfolio approach book with employability in mind in France, or like Don Presant who is championing the use of ePortfolio for employability and career development in Canada. And some face to face, like Steven Vincent, who owns an IT service provider and support company specialising in the business and education markets. His business is about Open Source software. Steve sees helping people make the best choices around the technology that supports their every day life as a cornerstone of his activity. I also had a long chat with a woman I know socially who had a successful career in HR prior to having children and who now wishes to reenter the business world. An ePortfolio could help her capitalise on the "soft competence" she has grown and harnessed through being a mum to add to her otherwise brilliant CV.
All these encounters contribute to the high High! By moving my focus slightly out of ePortfolio in New Zealand schools and by looking beyond, it becomes clear to me that there is a direct application for an ePortfolio in the "real world" and that at the mention of its potential, people are very interested in knowing more, and getting started!
All these encounters contribute to the low Low! What to do with this understanding? Where to start? Who with? How? What is my next step?
But I start to look up again as essentially there is a Why! So that there is continuity from school to work, there needs to be a common language about Learning across sectors. So that these worlds complement each other, the people who inhabit them ought to recognise and value future proofed skills and competences, to recognise and value creativity and self direction in individuals. I believe ePortfolios are the opportunity to establish this common language.
Now what? To test the theory. This is what I am going to do locally, while continuing to learn from the world of Education!

PS: Like the image? Just a little fun reminder to self that I have got to start believing that I can be a little part of that!

Bundle of Inspiration

I am currently buried under the self motivated (!?) task of identifying and verbalising concisely why I do what I do at the moment. It stems from the realisation that it is through experiencing with and gaining fluency* in the use of a range of tools that I am seeing the transformative learning processes that they enable. Another root is that through experience and increased fluency has developed an "online me", a digital self, an identity that I have total control over, that is an amplification of who I actually am. This online identity gives me visibility, connectedness and a consciousness of self that leads more naturally to bursts of reflection like this one! To capture learning moments, curate them, share them, get feedback and reflect upon them constitute a journey. A life long learning journey that augments my understanding of self, no end in sight no certificate no pay rise. I am told that it should be leading to plenty of satisfaction. Right now it is pretty messy.
So enters the opportunity to list where I get my inspiration from, and to use a new tool that is pretty useful to bundle together a range of reference websites and display them to share. It is called Bundlr .

This tool could be used in the classroom to bundle reference websites to share with students or students could work together to create a class one on themes that make them tick. What this makes visible to me right now is that my Inspiration comes very much from the world of Education. Which is not surprising considering I am a teacher and trainer. But I take it as a reminder to look at ways at opening my horizons further, especially when considering bringing a range of people from a range of spaces together around eportfolios. I feel this is going to stay messy for a while yet!

*Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano talks about iPad fluency and makes the analogy with grammar and language learning. It talked to me.

ePortfolio blah blah

It appears we have had very different weeks and not only weatherwise... This is what I have been up to. Hesitations, blanks and repetitions included, but a podcast no longer (?!) than 10 minutes. Lucky you! Put the SoundCloud app on your phone or your browser and give it a go, suggest to your students to create an account, start recording anywhere anytime and share wherever (including MyPortfolio!) It even works for words list :-). Could be useful for revision prior to mock exams!

Enjoy your long week end and keep warm and happy!