I have been fortunate to attend the AIS NSW (Association of Independent Schools of New South Wales) ICT Management and Leadership Conference over the last few days and I thought I would share a few reflections on it here. As this post will be quite long, you can see the various sections I’ll touch on here as an index and you can skip to what you may find relevant:
- Keynote from Dr Jane Hunter: High Possibility Classrooms
- Jeff Utecht – The Continuum of Digital Citizenship
- Matt McCormack – ICT Security – Making the most of what you have
- Various Presenters – 7minute Tell Sessions
- Rose Elsom – Continuous Online Reporting with Moodle and Sharepoint
- Northern Beaches Christian School – Student Media TV Crew
Introduction:
Hosted in the Canberra National Conference Centre, the organisation of the event was top notch, co-ordinated by the very useful app from GuideBook.com. This app (available free on iOS, Android, or the web – click here) provided all the necessary information at the touch of a button, including any last minute changes to sessions or venues – all updated automatically for conference delegates:
Screenshots of the GuideBook App
I can see plenty of potential uses for an app such as this, where the co-ordination of complex events (conferences, Centenary celebrations etc) can be easily achieved and all delegates or visitors can be confident of having the latest information to hand.
UPDATE: The GuideBook app is only free for the first 200 downloads. If you need more than 200 downloads then the cost is around US$1700.
Keynote from Dr Jane Hunter: High Possibility Classrooms
Dr Jane Hunter is an educational researcher who presented on her research into High Possibility Classrooms. This was a very interesting session to start the conference with and it was encouraging to see very recent academic research into the impact of technology in education. It is worth noting that this research looked at “exemplary” teachers, those that were already very proficient with technology and used it daily within their classrooms. You can read in detail about Dr Hunter’s research here:
- http://www.highpossibilityclassrooms.com/
- Her blog post about it here
- Her new book published very recently in March 2015 entitled Technology Integration and High Possibility Classrooms: Building from TPACK
One of the exemplary teachers that was used in the research used an interesting inquiry model based on the acronym QUEST:
- Question;
- Uncover
- Explain
- Share
- Together
It’s a simple idea that could be very useful in a range of classroom contexts. Another concept that she introduced was the TPACK model in eLearning. It’s similar to the SAMR model that we have explored previously on this blog and put simply, TPACK is:
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a framework that identifies the knowledge teachers need to teach effectively with technology
Jeff Utecht – The Continuum of Digital Citizenship
Jeff Utecht presented on Digital Citizenship in an engaging and interactive session that was broken up by his encouragement for us to quickly discuss our own experiences with the people around us. He started by posing the question “What is the biggest challenge with Digital Citizenship?” before suggesting:
Many schools are simply paying lip service to Digital Citizenship, but are not actually integrating it effectively into their curriculum.
Throughout his presentation he presented information from this section of his website and provided a few interesting statements such as:
- The average age a child touches a device in a classroom in the USA is 6yrs old – why then are we waiting another 3-5yrs before we start teaching Digital Citizenship?
- Peer to peer cyber-bullying is a far greater threat than encountering an anonymous online cyber predator.
- He suggested a new study found that a child has the same level of risk at being picked up at a public park than being approached online by an anonymous cyber predator
- The current school age generation is living “public first, private second” – in other words, they are sharing their lives online with others immediately.
- In the USA, most children by the age of 5yrs old have had around 3000 photos of them shared online – by the parents and wider family.
- 85% of universities in the USA google prospective students before offering them a position.
His session was interesting and in places quite challenging, particularly around how he sees the need for schools to engage with social media (for example, he proposes all schools should have an online community / social media manage position – he even wrote a job description for it). Continue reading
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