As I do at the beginning of each course - I feel excited anticipation, looking forward to meeting all course participants, finding out where their thinking is at, why they've elected to take this course, what they hope to get out of it.
I've just spent this weekend celebrating my youngest son's 13th birthday. We had 11 Year 8 students staying over last night and (while recovering from the inevitable sleep deprivation that such an event entails) I was reminded at the potential, the enthusiasm, the sheer joy kids at this age have in each other and I ask how often such energy is harnessed at school for them.
Do they power down or power up when they enter the classroom?
And then of course, there's the juxtaposition of my 17 year old who is doing Year 12...."doing Year 12"....it is so true. He's doing it, experiencing it, enduring it - but how creative is he being as he memorises facts, figures and formulae? Is he actually enjoying it? He's coping, he's up to date, he's immersed in the slog that characterises this final year at school - but what sort of quality educational experience is it offering him?And so, back to BastowLSDA...I hope each participant approaches the course with a flexible, receptive growth mindset and through this is able to glean from the course a meaningful learning experience that enables them to change something in or about their own leadership, and strategise with their team to create a vision for their school which will make a positive difference to the students with whom they learn and the teachers who are their colleagues.
Week 1. Day 1 tomorrow. The first step of a wonderful journey. Together.
One of the things I really like about BastowLSDA is that we don't have to produce an eLearning Plan. Instead school teams create an ICT CHANGE Plan that is a bona fide collaborative, creative work of their vision detailing the workable steps their school community can realistically take to move their own school from where it is now to where they want it to be.
ReplyDeleteI also liked how the Ormond PS team last year described the School ICT Change Plan as a 'Growth Plan' - perhaps we can also emphasise this further? The focus on change (and growth) makes this collaborative work dynamic and practical don't you think Alan?
ReplyDelete(ps I am loving the various features of Blogger - like being able to review comments appended to any of my blog entries from my dashboard - very nice)
Yes, I agree. To continue the theme, the way we present the ICT Plan is as a verb and not as a noun. eLearning Plans are often just a job that is ticked off the list as done and then put into file cabinet (even if it is a digital one). We want participants who get the idea that this plan is to be dragged all over the school. We want it to be well used and worn, not still in pristine condition sitting in its original packaging.
ReplyDeleteBlogger has features that work much better than Scootle I think. I like you we get email notifications rather than having to hunt for posts.