Antonio Gramsci

"The history of education shows that every class which has sought to take power has prepared itself for power by an autonomous education. The first step in emancipating oneself from political and social slavery is that of freeing the mind. I put forward this new idea: popular schooling should be placed under the control of the great workers’ unions. The problem of education is the most important class problem."

Gramsci, cited in Davidson's (1977) Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography. London: Merlin Press., p. 77.

See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Digital Pepeha: an enquiry into technology and tikanga Māori

Tangata Whenuatanga

Socio-cultural awareness and knowledge. Recognising that learning occurs within a cultural context. Knowledge of whakapapa; knowing who children are; where they are from and who they belong to. Our Identities, our languages, and our culture.

My enquiry consists of the planning, development, and teaching of a unit for Year 7 and 8 Digital Literacy classes where students will develop a “Digital Pepeha”.

The project acknowledges the worldview (whether Māori, Pākeha, or whatever Iwi) of our rangatahi (youth) and their digital realities. There is a naturalisation of sharing and the forming of social bonds (Manākitanga), often across physical distances, present in their lives as digital citizens. This enquiry aims to combine a contemporary aspect of their worldview with a particular piece of tikanga Māori - the pepeha.

The pepeha is a way to introduce yourself in te reo Māori. It delivers a brief historical, geographic, and genealogical overview of the speaker’s background. The pepeha’s narrative journey back in time culminates in the speaker’s name, and lastly his or her marae.

It is easy in a class focussing on Digital Literacies to be obsessed with the future. Such contemporary courses align well with our developing “future focus”, a pedagogical strategy embedded within a particularly Pākehā cosmology that privileges the future over the past. The Digital Pepeha aims to explore how digital literacies may intersect with an aspect of a traditional Māori worldview, particularly the tradition of walking backwards into the future, “Ka mura, ka muri.”?

81.5% of Māori know which “iwi” they belong to, indicating that whakapapa might still be a strong influence in the worldviews of most Maori.
http://www.putatara.net/2013/12/the-maori-worldview/

Where I’m at so far:

To accomplish this required me to explore and develop my own pepeha. To this end I have consulted with Whaea Te Ao Marama Hau, and Whaea Huhanna Davis regarding the pepeha form. I have also developed the Digital Pepeha Generator, a Google Form that enables students to enter the specific elements of their pepeha (maunga, awa, moana, etc.,) online in order to generate both English and te reo Māori versions of their pepeha automatically. We are currently compiling the text and images for generation of the final products.

My Pepeha (so far):

Tēnā koutou katoa

Ko te Whitirea te maunga
Ko Pipitea te awa
Ko te Titahi te moana
Ko Ngati Pākehā te iwi
Ko Simpson te hapu
Ko Roger tōku matua
Ko Thomas tōku whaea
Ko Glenn tōku tungane
Ko Jackson raua ko Georgia ōku tamariki
Ko Michelle tōku wahine
Ko Brent Simpson tōku ingoa
Ko Piritahi te marae

No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Speculation on Education

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

speculate: to invest money in ways that could produce a large profit, but that also involve a large risk. Can also be used in the sense of to form theories, or conjecture on something without any firm evidence. The combination of these two definitions is the backdrop to the phrase, "put your money where your mouth is."

There is risk in speculation. 

We need to know where our mouths are. Often they're in the same place, repeating the same stories; a broken place where our deepest passions like science, governance, and education are just big problems in need of fixing.

The Conversation, Arnold Lakhovsky [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

As this blog nears 10 years (a fact pointed out to me by a student in Genius Project) the Pedagogy of the Compressed still consumes me; but now my speculation on transformation is gaining it's mouth and it's money. If I invest in this, what will profit look like? What would the risk entail?

Is public schooling an outdated concept? What does divorced from the workplace mean? Are examinations as assessment a relic of modernity? How do we continue to "lift all boats"?

Genius Project is go!

Genius Project at Waiheke High School was inspired by Daniel Pink’s book ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’ which promotes the concepts of Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose as key factors in human motivation and performance. The name Genius Project comes from Genius Hour, a school version of  the original '20% time' pioneered by Google and 3M. The Google and 3M 20% time gave engineers and other employees one day a week to work on whatever took their fancy. This approach has resulted in the development of Gmail and Google Earth for Google, and Post-it notes for 3M (one of their most successful products), and it has been credited with increased productivity and employee satisfaction.

The project has been adapted for schools worldwide and allows students 1 hour a week in class (usually 20% of that class time) to work on a project of their own making. Caroline Crow, a maths teacher, and myself, now an English teacher, are running Genius Project on Friday at 5th period in her year 11 mathematics class. This is the last period of the school week. What better time could you get! For more information on our Genius Project check out the class Google site: WHS Genius Hour and take a look at the student blogs to see what kind of projects are going on. And please comment on student blogs if you see something you like. It would be great to get some global feedback going.

Autonomy

I spent the first day of the term in my Year 11 English class talking about the idea of autonomy and how I would to endeavor to create more of an environment for facilitating greater autonomy for the rest of the year. The easy way forward was to provide greater autonomy over student selection of the content we were studying for a variety of the NCEA standards. I suspect that for most of my students' schooling teachers had decided what the content was to be studied, and if they weren't actually outright dictating the content, they were providing a limited selection from which students could choose. I had done exactly this my first term and students, rightly so, didn't see it as real 'choice' - they saw it as "you can pick what you like as long as you pick one of what I give you."

My sole reason for focusing on autonomy is to try to increase student engagement. I was inspired by the book by Daniel Pink called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. This text, and many others, argue that greater student autonomy (although the benefits of autonomy are not limited by any means to just students) leads to higher levels of engagement, while on the other side of the spectrum high levels of control leads to compliance.

But the problem I see now is not just student autonomy, it is also teacher autonomy. The sheer amount of assessment and reporting that is required by government education agencies forces teachers into compliance mode, teaching for the test, timetabled, fordist curriculum routines, and one-size fits-all teaching. It's difficult to teach autonomy from a position that is so controlled and it can result in a level of disengagement by teachers. If we want autonomous and engaged students, we also need autonomous and engaged teachers. 

How can we change this? That's probably another blog post (or two, or three), but I think we need to start discussing the power and trust we have given over to politicians to influence education. We need to start asking the hard questions before we scramble for solutions to problems that are not really at the core of the tradition that educators know best; problems that are created by the media, by electioneering, or by the untrained, unexperienced with tall soap-boxes and hidden agendas. Whether politics hinders or enhances our educational system must be a core enquiry. 

Most Likely to Succeed

I hope that this doco comes to New Zealand. We need to get on board faster than we are.


Most Likely to Succeed Trailer from One Potato Productions on Vimeo.

ChangSchoolTalks 2015: Stephen Downes

A very condensed overview of the thoughts of Stephen Downes on future learning. In New Zealand/Aotearoa we still seem to be in some sort of design mode; we talk about iteration, enquiry, and we amplify structural problems by throwing computer power or better WiFi at schools. The challenge is deeper; it's actually a societal question that must in some part transcend the politics of the day, but politicians are too embedded in our secondary education system, they're implicit in it, and their neo-liberal logic means schools are the babysitters of capitalism, not cauldrons of intellect or innovation. I believe we can change this, but we need to think on it more like Downes and less like Hekia Parata.

John Hattie interview

John Hattie talks about his Visible Learning programme.

Liberal Arts Education in 50 years

Some interesting thoughts on the future of higher ed liberal arts education. If change comes from below then perhaps we should model at Secondary level.

Notes on personalised learning environments for NZ secondary schools

Speculative thoughts on a personalised learning environment for NZ schools.

A truly personalised learning environment would consists of: a platform, a paradigm, and a pedagogy (The 3 Ps).

Some features of the Platform:

Digital - Seems pretty straightforward but ... everything is digital. I join, I sign-in, I aggregate, I share, I create, and I'm assessed digitally. (This "I" should probably learn how to type as a pre-requisite, it replaces penmanship and is part of an expanded digital literacy. How young can you learn now to type? Primary school?)

Data - Curriculum (in NZ, NCEA standards) is incredibly valuable - it creates the matrix through which I can track my progress. Personalisation depends on being able to view your learning accomplishments, your requirements, and your needs and interests from a birds eye view in relation to what is considered accomplished in a particular subject area. Collecting aggregating, and presenting this data is large part of this; as is protecting it. But it's not "data driven", in the sense that this is not about algorithms dictating to me. It's not Spotify, but it might be Pandora (in case you're a music geek.) The fact that I'm also creating digitally means I'm creating more data. This requires a big-data strategy. Big Data is not just the realm of scientists; but it does require computational expertise to be applied. Schools not only need pipes to carry data, they also need expertise. We need fully digital hi-tech librarians perhaps.

Social - School is a social experience. My peers are there to help and support me (this is behavior that teachers and community need to model online ... please!) They may be at different stages in the same journey, and are connected via strong and weak network bonds (see: interpersonal ties). Social includes the community outside of school. Yes, real people in real life. Just because it's all digital doesn't mean I don't get my fingers dirty.

Visualization - data about me needs to be able to be viewed from a variety of perspectives, and in ways responsive to the needs of the user. For example, an administrator, a counselor, a parent, and a teacher may wish to view data in a variety of formats that are relevant and make sense to them. Visualization needs to be in real time. It's not about surveillance. I don't see this as tracking progress in the traditional sense. It's about mapping. How can I help steer you towards resources, goals, and people? How can I know you and the thousand others?

There is definitely an ePortfolio like element to this, but the problem with the current ePortfolios I have observed are that they are not much more than content management systems for user generated documents. There is no intelligence built into them, they are tied to the desktop, and they are begrudgingly social. The platform needs to be geo-spatially aware and mobile as well because we are creating modern learning environments where learning and support for learning may be targeted towards specifically designed architectural spaces (the majority of school buildings in NZ were built between 1950 and 1970). Being geo-spatially aware also alerts the user to the proximity of peers. I will "check-in" to the library and "check-out" digital books. The point is to pair devices and their owners.

This is a quick brain dump, not a plan, or a blog post even. Add your thoughts in the comments if you care to.

Next up ... The Paradigm.

------------------------------------

Reference: 

Further reading about Modern Learning Environments

#edchatnz

#edchatnz is a group of New Zealand teachers who meet on Twitter every second Thursday at 8:30pm NZ time to talk about teaching and technology. They're also using blogger to capture the twitter stream that ensues as well as summarizing the evenings discussion. Here's their latest discussion:

edchatnz: Networking 101: The Topic: Networking 101: Why bother networking as a teacher? How does networking affect your teaching? 

Pond, Network for Learning portal

Pond is being promoted as a hub for digital discovery and participation, where educational resources can be accessed and shared more easily and effectively. While I appreciate that it is handy to have some reputable sources (and hopefully ones' that encourage Creative Commons licensing) that are by default searchable through the site, I'm also hoping that Pond will also allow users to aggregate from other resources as well. NZ seems to be sorely lacking in the development of a social platform for teachers to use to help with planning around our particular curriculum requirements and if Pond can fill that gap I think it will be a great investment for education generally and an invaluable space for teachers.

Introducing Pond, the Network for Learning portal from Network for Learning on Vimeo.

#glass Interviews

Series of recorded Google Hangouts by Alexander Hayes of his interaction with the Google Glass Explorers Community and other related contacts from industry, research and affiliated organisations. The intent of this research activity is to gain an understanding of the key motivations, experiences and understandings that these individuals gain from engaging with this emergent wearable technology.

University of Auckland dips toe into MOOC waters

The University of Auckland has teamed up with pilot MOOC platform FutureLearn and is expected to start delivering some courses on the platform shortly. FutureLearn is a private company wholly owned by the Open University and with over 20 UK and international university partnerships, as well as institutions with archives of cultural and educational material, including the British Council, the British Library, and the British Museum. It's a small step for the University which has been in the past, according to various statements by vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon, hesitant to jump on the MOOC bandwagon. It will  be extremely interesting to see how this pans out over the back-drop of a university which seems to be increasingly in a phase of creating new physical spaces with both the demolishing and rebuild of the Science faculty and the purchase of a significant space in Newmarket. 

Civic Engagement at NetHui

I recently spoke at the NetHui conference in Auckland on the topic of Civic Engagement (see post below this one). This is a video of that session; Russel Brown spoke first, then I come on at 21 minutes.

ownership blues (or, diversity rag?)

A few nights ago the "public service broadcaster" TV One had prime minister John Key live on the evening of the governments latest budget. They employed a very weak trope to fill this half an hour: an average white family, 2 kids + dog and mortgage, asking questions to the prime minister from location in their suburban home. In another stroke of brilliant political television the prime minister had been prepared prior to the event with background economic information on the family on the other side of his monitor, as he quite freely confessed. When asked by the scruffy Close-Up presenter Mark Sainsbury how the budget was going to impact them financially the father sort of shyly responded "actually ... not much". Wow! This was to be a thrilling people's counterpoint to the smug pinstriped accountant now sitting in the highest seat of power in New Zealand@!!!! Not. Our public service broadcaster? Controversial budget during tough economic times in a continued global recession plus an upcoming election ... and this is what the public service broadcaster came up with in the face of having the governments leader in the studio. Oh boy :-(

I'm increasingly distressed by the sense that the New Zealand public sphere and subsequently our democracy is a failed modernist experiment in need of revision. Television in New Zealand is truly depressing; and the level of commercialism we seem willing to tolerate just cripples our pride and deepens our inability to grow as a nation. I actually believe that what holds us back from being the truly innovative and sustainable country we would like to believe we are, is the rampant commercialisation and almost total international ownership of our media. When a government comes to New Zealand that can return the media landscape to a more equitable diversity of ownership and use of media, then we can start again on moving forward politically and socially.

Man ...

its vacant around here. Should dust this place off again perhaps.

Reading ...

this: Open education: the need for critique

Wish I could go to this...

but i can't. So I wish them a good conference and will catch some on uStream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/uc-ip/v3

Meeting Poem: Identity and Access Management

I was put into the system
I acquired an affiliation
I added my address
  entered my emergency contacts
  submitted my identity to downstream systems
Some of me was verified for accuracy
  read-only
  updated

I started
  and I would end.

Was I dead?

Yes. No.