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The Essentiality Of A Good School Technician

Published on February 9, 2012 in Personal Reflections. 0 Comments

Ever tried to keep on top of a school Network without a technician to call on. I am at the moment and every minute I spend creating Active Directory profiles or fixing an uncooperative wireless keyboard, I am appreciating their worth more and more. Even knowing the process for logging a warranty issue on a faulty laptop or restarting the server after a power outage is something that I normally can rely on to be technician’s business so that I can focus on the bigger picture of improving learning outcomes for the students.

I was lucky to work with two really talented technicians over the course of 2011. The first is still back at my old site (as well as my own kid’s primary school where he has helped agitate for some of the changes I’ve pushed for as a parent) but of course, I left there for a new opportunity at Woodville Gardens. There I was lucky enough to work with the second who did the leaving this time for an enticing position at another school (in an ironic twist). Between the two of them, I have seen the best traits of this crucial role in Australian schools.

A good technician is someone who says, “Tell me what you want to do, and I’ll do my best to make it happen. I’ll explain your best options but always allow your knowledge of learning priorities right of way.”

A good technician knows how to translate technical jargon and processes into something that most educators can understand. A good technician is flexible and strives to minimise downtime in the classroom. A good techie knows how to self prioritise, to give suggestions and inside knowledge to the coordinator or AP, savvily stretch the finite budget and find the balance between troubleshooting and setting up stuff for the near and longer term future.

Unfortunately, we don’t pay school based technicians much and many move on to more lucrative opportunities in private enterprise. In primary school, we ask them to be generalists and know a bit of everything but in contrast to much of the private sector, school technicians enjoy greater autonomy and less pressure from more understanding clients (the teachers!). Although as I juggle my AP responsibilities and the very basics of technical troubleshooting and early year network maintenance, I feel quite pressured!

So, if you’re a technician in the Adelaide metro area looking for a challenge at a great school, let me know. I can’t hold down this role forever. And you know you will be valued.

The Network – Platform Edition

Published on February 3, 2012 in Digital Convergence. 3 Comments

This not about Mac vs. PC.

This is about the Network (uttered in tones of reverence) – not the network (which we all use via our phones, our laptops, our gaming systems etc).

In schools, we love the concept of the Network. Not in the wide world connected definition, but the connect your device and store stuff in one secure environment type of concept. Every school I know about here in South Australia has a Network. It is usually set up for the staff and students to use exclusively when within the school environment. If it’s not on “the Network” then it is isn’t allowed in the school. It involves passwords and user profiles and printer permissions and wireless certificates (should your school be lucky enough to have some form of wireless environment). There are Windows Networks (the vast majority here in SA) and there are Mac Networks, and a few adventurous sites title themselves as cross-platform when they have a combination of both. I don’t know too much about Linux although Grant High School (under the vision of Peter Ruwoldt, now in the APY Lands in the Far North of SA) were using Ubuntu in an extremely innovative way to build skills and engage with the wider community.

For teachers, the Network is a necessary evil. It keeps things “safe”, is a place for the organisation and sharing of digital resources, and gives each staff member and student a safe digital storage space. Of course, many teachers still struggle with things like passwords, how to navigate to a folder to find something they had created earlier and sometimes need to write all of this process down on a piece of paper. Many believe that it is the Network that gives them access to the internet (the lower case n network) in much the same way that they believe the interactive whiteboard is a magical device, forgetting that it is just a dormant piece of plastic connected to the real magical device, the computer. So, it follows that many (not all and just in my experience) teachers like the idea of a single platform Network, preferably on a platform that they are familiar and comfortable with. Cross platform can evoke responses of fear and panic, and strategies of survival that unfortunately manifest themselves in restricted opportunities for students. Technicians within schools also command a fair bit of sway when it comes to determining a school’s platform/Network direction. Those with Windows Server knowledge will talk down Mac software, complain about the hassle of dual platforms and highlight every single networking issue (real or imagined) that they can think of. And it works back the other way with gripes about messy updates, the constant vigilance against viruses and so on. And as for Linux, even though even a non-technical person like myself knows that its existence has borne much of the computing world as we know it, well, some technicians will complain about the lack of paid support and posit that if it is free, then it can’t possibly be any good.

I like to believe that I am platform agnostic. I am happy to find my way around any OS, although my Ubuntu experience is limited to the Netbook Remix version sitting on my oldest son’s netbook. Windows has a certain logic to it that seems to make sense in a school Network – and kids can easily save work to their folder and retrieve the contents from any connected computer on the system. I love my MacBook Pro and will probably buy Mac again for my own personal use – and it has become a bit of a cliche at my school with teachers who have become fervent Mac users to quote,”Once you try Mac, you’ll never go back.”

So, at my school, we are cross platform. This is as much about a conscious decision to do so as it was that when the three closing schools pooled their collective technology stock that there was a split of Macs and PCs that needed to be used. However, there are many advantages to have a foot in each major camp, so to speak. We don’t want kids who are like some of the teachers – scared of a particular platform because they will need to “learn something new”. In a world that is web based, whether your browser sits in a Windows OS or a Mac one is entirely irrelevant until instinct has you lunging for either the right or left side to close the window. As long as kids can make sense of menus and taskbars and file paths, then there is no good reason why Office should be preferred over other word processing tools, no reason why iMovie should be the only way to edit video. And with tablet devices bringing in more alternative operating systems (Android, iOS etc.) restricting today’s learners to only one company’s worldview of technology aided learning just doesn’t make sense. I know the big companies probably don’t support this point of view – things like Microsoft Innovative Teaching awards and Apple Distinguished Educator programs just emphasise that one way is the way to go.  But learning isn’t device dependent – but it is increasingly becoming network enabled. And I mean the one without the capital letter.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/mac_pc.png

Headspace

Published on January 26, 2012 in Inquiry, Personal Reflections and Staff Training. 4 Comments

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrdarkroom/4265886842/

Frank, my boss, likes to talk about three types of space in school – physical space, virtual space and teacher headspace. The first two only get used well when the third is open to good practice, seeing things differently and willing to re-imagine what could be.

I’ve been in leadership since 2003 but it has mainly been on what I think is the first rung – as a coordinator who had release time from my own classroom responsibilities to lead out in the area of learning technologies. Since July last year, I’ve been on the next rung as an Assistant Principal, and it is only now as I’m starting a new school year with this school and this group of colleagues that I’m really realising the difference it makes when you have different broader responsibilities without the responsibility of one specific group of students.

As a coordinator, it was easy to lead by example. “I’ve set this up in my classroom and it works this way.” I had classroom credibility but was always short on time to do as much as is needed for the whole school big picture. Now I have the time and scope in my new experience but I have no classroom presence to draw on and to demonstrate with.

A quick example from Wednesday. I led a presentation on Inquiry Learning, knowing that at a large school just over a year old, there would be colleagues with a wide variety of experiences and perspectives on the topic. At Lockleys North, we had a huge focus on inquiry learning and I have a reasonable amount of experience with the process, planning and implementation of learning in this vein. I’ve had the privilege of high level training and PD – three sessions with Kath Murdoch, two times listening to both Mark Treadwell and John Hattie and been to Melbourne to spend three days with Jay McTighe. I’ve designed units of work with my former Upper Primary colleagues over the past four years and sat in on the planning of many others in that time. I have a sizeable digital resource library of articles, videos, powerpoints and templates. I’ve even been on the journey from back when I was teaching at Flagstaff Hill Primary in the nineties and getting into Resource Based Learning in a major way just as the internet was becoming a viable thing in South Australian schools. I dabbled and wrote webquests, then moved onto Problem Based Learning in my new role as a coordinator at Lockleys North when I started in 2003. So I’ve done heaps.

But now it is all in my head. I mean it was in my head before too but I could show Inquiry Learning as an extension of my own practice. As an AP, I’m the person spouting what the classroom teachers should be doing, becoming a quasi-consultant – talking the talk but the walk is back in the immediate past. I worry that I may become one of those people from the department who lose touch with what really happens in the classroom and a result command very little respect without ever really realising that their words are ignored at best.

I’m sure that if you are a school leader, you know what I’m talking about. So, I’m keen for any feedback here.

How did you make that transition from leading classroom practitioner to leadership?

How did you hang on that credibility that is vital for effective leadership?

Insert The Keys

Published on January 20, 2012 in Personal Reflections. 0 Comments

One of my very favourite places to hang out is the town of Goolwa. We went down there for a few days earlier in the week and enjoyed some family time. Goolwa is an amazing spot in Australia as it has the Murray River finding its way to the sea, adjacent to the Coorong not far from the fresh water lakes of Alexandrina and Albert. Things have really changed in the area since 2009 when the drought was having its biggest effect on the Murray River. The best place to see the contrast is from a lookout on top of a tall sand dune on Goolwa Beach.

Here you can see my youngest son Josh in the middle of the lookout. On his right is my wife, Joanne looking out at the Southern Ocean, while my other son Aaron in the red t-shirt is looking back towards the township of Goolwa.

Here is what he could see. You can see the Hindmarsh Island bridge in the upper right connecting Goolwa to the island over the River Murray. The clouds are greyish as a cool change had come in and it was about 7.30 pm.

It really is a nice part of the world.

 

 

Tuning Into A Decent Radio Station

Published on January 11, 2012 in Internet. 0 Comments

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johanl/138132641/

I’ve been thinking about posting about this issue since I read this article in the local paper. In summary, commercial radio stations want to ditch the 25% Australian music quota requirement that has been in place for a long time now. This naturally has the local music industry calling foul but the issue is complicated by the fact that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has exempted digital radio stations from the same requirement.

I’m not a big listener to radio but I do enjoy Australian music and I’m sure that radio does have a fair bit to do with how Aussie bands fair in the marketplace. 25 per cent is a reasonable ask but does the radio industry have a point in an age where anyone with an internet connection can tap into music from any of the web based radio stations out there. I’ve often used YouTube as a way of exploring new music and reacquainting myself with some classics from the past – and I’m not required to adhere to any quota.

So, this is the internet and I’ll do my bit for Australian music. I can usually ignore whatever is on the charts anyway so I’ll leave you with four reasons why you should ensure that your own music lists have a bit of Aussie in it. (And I won’t insult you by including anything from TV talent shows.)

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/8UVNT4wvIGY ]

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/R1BD2G8hrFw ]

Enjoy.

Opening The Car Door

Published on January 10, 2012 in Future Directions and Personal Reflections. 0 Comments

I’ve never been one to jump in at the deep end. I ease myself into things in the same manner that I slide carefully into the chilly water of a pool or a cautious wade out into the ocean. I have been described as opinionated in a low key way but I am typically unsure of myself at the best of times. So, even after six months in this new role of Assistant Principal, I am still feeling my way, thinking and re-thinking my possible approaches for effective leadership within this role. So, in an effort to lay out some starting thoughts and switch from holiday mode where I have happily absorbed a whole lot of junk pop culture, spent simple family time doing not much at all and indulging in a lot of directionless web reading and viewing to shaping up my contribution for 2012 to the Woodville Gardens School learning community.

First, a bit of background. I had a stint as acting Deputy Principal at my previous school during Term 2 and found that I really enjoyed the time out of the classroom working on staff issues, communicating with the parent community and getting a closer look at how the administrative side of a South Australian government school works. I had the opportunity to apply for a six month stint as Assistant Principal at Woodville Gardens which I was lucky enough to win for a longer three year tenure late in 2011. So, I headed off to this new “super school” with a heady mixture of excitement and trepidation because I was stepping up into a non-classroom role for the first time in a testing environment. Everything at the school was brand new and even arriving after everyone else had been settled in for the first semester didn’t mean that all of the bugs had been ironed out! I’ve learnt quickly about the quirks of a cross platform network, large stocks of netbooks that are underpowered and disliked by staff and students alike and finding that much of my pedagogical knowledge is not necessarily common practice. More about that later – and do not mistake my observation as a criticism. In my application that culminated in my successful appointment I listed out all that I had managed in my time up to that point:

Assistant Principal – ICT and Administration
Semester 2, 2011

quickly established key working relationships with technician, teacher-librarian and leadership in supporting the school’s ICT direction blended into the school culture, offering key support during the school’s official opening, producing and providing a student perspective video to showcase the school’s diversity worked in partnership with the teacher-librarian to collaborate with middle and upper primary classes involved in inquiry research units of work started a program of Professional Learning after school sessions for teachers based on the “teacher as learner†model consulted with senior leadership to make decisions around student laptop distribution supported behaviour management of students as required taken on and maintained administration tasks including the maintenance of equitable rosters (NIT, Yard Duty, Traffic monitors), management of the School photos and NAPLAN results distribution established working relations with DECS ICT support staff, learning as much as possible about the school’s technology infrastructure, its cross platform capabilities and started on the implementation of the school’s online student learner management system (StudyWiz) applied for the school’s inclusion in the 2012 Microsoft Innovative Schools program planned for a future staff focus on 21st Century Learning as connected to the school’s priorities, use of the TfEL and focus on personalisation of student learning

I’ve deliberately avoided rushing into the place and posing myself as some sort of expert. That approach can only put people off and backfire but I have made it my business to really take a close look at how teachers are using the technology at their disposal and how they work around the many roadblocks that invariably crop up. So, now as I’m about a week away from going back to work, I need to air out some thoughts about this year and how I will fulfil my role. I can only do it my way in careful consideration of the unique needs of this school and this community – what outside people think and do are only useful in so far in helping us clarify what is needed for Woodville Gardens.

Listening to Tony Bryant from Silverton Primary School in Melbourne earlier in 2011 made me realise that leadership for change can be achieved by focussing on one school becoming the best that it can be. The school can then be a focus point for other like minded schools looking for ideas on how contemporary learning can be implemented in a way that empowers the students. I’m lucky – we have an excellent leadership team all pointed in a common direction and we all bring various strengths and perspectives to the table. I’m there for my educational technology knowledge and experience in inquiry learning – and I can only claim the upper hand in those domains because I have been fortunate enough to be connected to the wider network of educators, drawing on their expertise, ideas and inspiration.

So, I have an important role to play. Technology is one of those areas where to be too prescriptive and fixed in planning means missing evolving opportunities for taking learning in new and unanticipated directions. But I have to work out how to be influential in the right way, how to make wise decisions that use resources effectively and how to make sure that we have learning solutions tailored for our kids and their unique needs. It is an exciting task. I have three years to make a difference and culture within any site takes time to nurture and shape. I am part of a team but I am very aware of the responsibilities in front of me. Like all learners I will make mistakes along the way and get sidelined, but that is all part of the process.

Seasons Greeting And All That Stuff

Published on December 23, 2011 in Personal Reflections. 0 Comments

Hope all of my readers (the ones who still check their subscription feed every now and again) have a great festive season – and that all Australian educators enjoy their break. I am well rested after a break from blogging caused by a number of mundane factors – busy end of year, new role, watching too many TV-on-DVD series etc, etc – but I fully intend to get back into some writing in the new year. Meanwhile, the tumbleweed can roll around here for a few days/weeks until something topical crops up.

Cheers,
Graham.

Caution: Facebook Is Not The Internet

Published on November 27, 2011 in Personal Reflections. 0 Comments

I find Facebook fascinating in the same way that many people admire deadly snakes. You have to wary and careful in order to avoid being bitten. I have an account although I could hardly be accused of being a prolific user – I like to think that if I am cautious, I can maintain a presence here that enables me to know the entity from within without hopefully selling my digital soul.

After all, Facebook seems to be great at connecting with people who I already know. Sending a Friend Request to my new colleagues at my current place of employment is a way of strengthening collegial relationships, and allows me to get to know them better as people rather than just work mates.

Facebook is hugely popular with primary school kids here as well. From what I see and hear, I can make the following generalisations:

Aussie kids don’t know (or maybe even care) that when they sign up for an account, they are:

grant (ing) us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).

not (to) use Facebook if you are under 13.

not (to) create more than one personal profile.

:from Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities

I followed this link from Brian Lamb’s delicious links, and the image of the deadly snake starts to come back into my mind again. The opening paragraph from Anil Dash sounds out a warning for those of us who have enjoyed and benefitted from the distributed web.

Facebook has moved from merely being a walled garden into openly attacking its users’ ability and willingness to navigate the rest of the web. The evidence that this is true even for sites which embrace Facebook technologies is overwhelming, and the net result is that Facebook is gaslighting users into believing that visiting the web is dangerous or threatening.

He outlines a compelling argument that is clear by non-geek standards, and down in the comments is a response link from a Facebook engineer. Read that with the average Facebook user in mind and consider if that explanation makes you feel more comfortable about the place Facebook occupies in the internet ecosystem and even in the spectre of popular culture.

Personally, I think it is only a matter of time before Facebook creates its own browser that presents its version of the web to its captive users.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/123660909/

Peeking Out Of The Trench

Published on November 13, 2011 in Future Directions. 0 Comments

Like many, my career in education has consisted solely of working in schools within the one state system. I did go to a private secondary school way back in the eighties so I do have some dated preconceptions about how that system works. But it was only when I started a blog and started reading and connecting more widely beyond the confines of that system, did I gain any other perspective about what was going on in other parts of the world in education. Even now with my Twitter followings, my crammed Google Reader, I am still limited or semi-blinded to much of what happens in schools or learning in much of the world today. Anyone who thinks that they have a global perspective just because they use social media is deluded – but social media does allow people to spread word about their local or national perspective very easily beyond the boundaries of that system.

Last week, I went to a DECD (formerly DECS) conference on Innovative Learning Environments with my principal and a team from my school. We were invited to share our story as one of the new Super Schools constructed by the South Australian government and how we had gone about rethinking how we did the business of schooling. And once again during the course of the day (because I’ve heard this line of thought before) a person from the upper echelons of our department stated that Australia (and by association, South Australia) was doing pretty well by world standards in the education stakes. Apparently, our students stack up pretty well considering that Australia takes in sizeable numbers of refugees and caters for a culturally diverse student population. Now I’m willing to believe this because on each occasion that I have heard this observation, I have heard justification for our results and structures that make sense without me actually going and doing the research for myself. But I wonder why it is that the media don’t see this perspective, and are quick and ready to trumpet “slipping of standards”, “dumbing down of expectations” and “falling behind the rest of the world.”

I might think that NAPLAN and MySchool are very narrow and dangerously restrictive tools to view the success of our schools, but I also think that education is still focussed on working towards the necessary things students will require for personal success in our society. I don’t fear a massive slashing of education budgets (yet) and even if the new Australian Curriculum has the lingering odour of political interference, it is not the vehicle for big business to turn education into a commodity. Perhaps I’m being very naive.

Perhaps the biggest strength of being a mainly State funded system means that we don’t have the situation that Will Richardson is spotlighting in his much pointed to recent post. What he describes is very scary. And I’d hope that Australia would not be so foolish as to follow the American lead downwards here – but we are a culture that likes to ape the USA as much as possible. Maybe our saving grace is that the big corporations that are eying off the $$$$ available in the huge student population and numerous K-12 systems will see Australia as a market not worth worrying about, and we don’t feel the pressure that Will describes in depressing detail.

If you scroll down to the comments on Will’s post, someone challenges him to state what he thinks today’s classrooms should look like and he responds:

What’s the vision? Classrooms built on inquiry, where kids ask and answer their own questions, where teachers act as co-learners in the process because with all that we now have access to, we all better be learners. Schools where we truly value a student’s ability to connect with other learners, to create beautiful works of art and inspiration, to develop a passion to keep learning, not just learn what the system pushes in their direction.

Now again, my naivety may be showing through but this statement does describe my last two schools pretty well in terms of a similar vision to be aspiring to. It also fits with the stories of the other schools gathered there at this conference. So, DECD is on the right track here by giving these schools a platform for change, by seeking to see how their innovation can scale out across the organisation. My fear is that given our state system’s recent reputation as being a risk averse organisation (an observation made on numerous occasions by many people on the day) is that many schools will not look to create and follow their own vision, and continue to wait on the directions from Flinders Street and their district offices. That would be a real shame – and signal to corporate interests that K-12 education is waiting to be “saved”.

How Do I Find Sierra Leone?

Published on November 8, 2011 in Personal Reflections. 2 Comments

Working with a Year 5 class today using and annotating Google Maps when one of the students asked if she could look for her “old home”.

I said sure, and then she asked, “How do you spell Sierra Leone?”

I helped her and she quickly navigated her way to Freetown. She zoomed into her old neighbourhood, or what she thought was, checking out some of the linked photos on the map. “Oh, I remember that beach!”

“How long ago did you come to Australia?” I ask in my best diplomatic voice.

“About four years ago. But there are no photos here of my street.”

Then I suggested that she grab the yellow Streetview man and drag him into one of the streets.

“It won’t work.”

Then it dawned on me. The roads were dirt and had never had the Googlemobile cruise them. The civil war that had been the catalyst for this particular student’s family decision to depart has meant that this is one of the many places on Earth that Google won’t venture into. You can zoom in from on high via a satellite but the real Freetown can be still be explored via the sharing mechanism on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/belsymington/4102781100/

And today’s little experience connects me back up to a quote from Jose Vilson plucked a little bit out of context from a recent post of his, but I’m sure that as long as it is making me think, I’m sure he won’t mind. He says the following at the end of a pointed paragraph:

We say we want the best for all children, but have a hard time using the words “Black,†“Latino,†or “Asian.†Heck, you still think those types of kids don’t come to school to learn how to make it in a world that’s not theirs.

What we push forward in a typical Australian classroom is constructed from cultural and national understandings that are a world away from a child born in Sierra Leone, a second generation Vietnamese kid whose parents had to flee their home country or even an Aboriginal kid whose ancestors were always here but comes from a culture that is often poorly understood and massively underrepresented in Australian society. And after hearing a lot more about the incoming Australian Curriculum, I wonder whether it will empower or disengage our kids from indigenous, migrant and refugee backgrounds in our classrooms.

Or will they wish they were still back in their own “Freetown”?

 

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