What does culturally responsive facilitation look like? A reflection

I have been delaying writing up this reflection for a long time...more than a couple of months in fact - the notes I took during the session have sat in draft format and I have 'mulled' over what happened and why.

Part of the reason, I guess is that it is connected to those gnarly subjects 'cultural appropriacy and responsiveness', which can lead to some strong, occasionally critical, reactions. The elephant in the room is often the feeling of not knowing how to react appropriately, and a fear that the people with whom you are interacting would not be sympathetic to your not knowing.


What happened?

The session I was participating in was a professional development session about facilitation. We discussed the idea that facilitation can take many forms, and whether it is 'good' or not is in part dependent on context and interpretation - and all of these are factors are likely to change over time as beliefs around learning and teaching shift.

All great so far...then my brain went into overdrive - for me, given the points above some of the interesting conundrums included:

• If a person does not share your values around how facilitation is conducted, what are the implications around that?
• Can a person elect to not engage with the way a learning experience is set up? What is the result of this?
• Can you go in with humility if you have a set of values up front - should they be negotiated as part of the process?
• Can we assume that every school, institution, iwi or whanau accepts that the values you go in with are the most valuable ones for them?
• What do we have to learn about the people that we are going to be working with?
• A suggestion was that it is necessary to bring something to a session that is 'part' of the people - analogies, images, ways of talking about things. But, how do you do that in a diverse community. What if the analogies are meaningless to some of the people in the room? Do you focus on the majority? Do you try to cover most of the cultural groups? Do you cover all of them? How? Or, is the main focus the people in the room with the most influence? People who are from that part of the world?

 

Image by Lazar_Shlevich

And finally, the 'pear-shaped' moment...I started to have a visceral reaction to being advised that I would need to share a specific set of values, and it felt as if there was little or no room for discussion around what was included and how it was interpreted. Furthermore, with my rapidly increasing  sense of distress, there appeared to be one main culture that was being put-forward...and much of the language being used to describe some of the values was totally foreign to me - literally. I hadn't a clue what was going on half the time. During the session I typed "I am being made to feel like an outsider...somehow lacking in cultural knowledge and awareness. And maybe that is an uncomfortable truth. It is an area that I am unfamiliar with. Is it because my own beliefs are being challenged? I find the language being used as exclusive / excluding of me and my culture".

 

Image by hazelowendmc

So what?

I think of myself as a person who has travelled a reasonable amount through Europe, South East Asia, and Australasia, and I have spent several years in the Middle East. It came as quite a shock, therefore, when I realised that I was having an emotional reaction around cultural responsiveness in this session - something I had experienced before, but never so strongly. It was always something that I read about in articles and research papers, and saw as an integral aspect of learning design.

Another thing I noticed, though, is as soon as I started feeling uncomfortable - I stopped really listening and engaging with the other people in the session. The only reason I remember anything except the emotional response was that I could access the notes I took at the outset of the session.

I have since spoken to other people who have experienced similar reactions...but interestingly people would have a "wow, I'm so pleased you mentioned that. No-one has before and I just thought I was being precious" type reaction. Often the reaction is dismissed as an over-reaction.

Bigger question for me, therefore, is how many times have I made students and colleagues feel similarly uncomfortable? Only one time has a student spoken about this to me (and after the sense of mortification on my part dissipated a little, I was able to consult with another student to help me work out what I had done to offend, how to address that situation, and how to make sure I didn't do it again...phew!).

What next?

There are several things I need to do and think about including:

• grasp every opportunity to learn about other cultures in a meaningful (rather than token) sense;
• work with individuals who I know I can ask dumb, and perhaps what turn out to be insensitive, questions -  where that they will understand I am learning...and making mistakes;
• find the courage to speak to people in a non-confrontational way when they make me feel culturally 'other'...but to go with suggestions around how this might be addressed so as to not leave them feeling high and dry; and
• work on, read about, and research how to design culturally responsive and appropriate online spaces and experiences - such that they are neither 'sterile', nor inclusive of only one or a few cultures. Rather I would like to design great spaces to learn and communicate for as many cultures as possible.

There are several more things I will add as I continue to reflect, but that will continue for many years I suspect! A couple of really positive things to have come out of this. There's nothing quite like experiencing something to start to understand it, and...well, I didn't even really consciously acknowledge I had a culture up until that point. As an immigrant to New Zealand I have been so busy trying to integrate and feel accepted that I guess I had stopped thinking of myself as having cultural roots, and that they may be important to me.

Related articles

• "Culturally Responsive" (education420.wordpress.com)

Images

• An unhealthy relationship by baking_in_pearls
• MET Anthropology & Educational Technology by jsv_foto

Digital Citizenship and Online Safety (a session facilitated by Nancy Groh)

Image by hazelowendmc via Flickr

Today was the first session of the Paepae Hot Seat session, Digital Citizenship and Online Safety, kindly facilitated by Nancy Groh from Netsafe. Netsafe are the developers of the Learn, Guide, Protect site, where educators and the wider community can share resources around digital citizenship and online safety. The idea is that educators develop "an online repository of material schools can use and adapt to promote a student-centred approach to digital citizenship and cyber safety" (Nancy Groh).

Nancy opened by asking everyone to introduce themselves and where they currently are, in the chat box - a nice way to see who is doing what as well. She then moved on to a short re-cap of using computers and cybersafety since 1998. It was amazing to see that no-one in the group were using computers in classrooms in 1998, and no one had cell phones. The phenomenal changes since then were then described, and ICT was seen as the norm, and those that don't have Internet access are now marginalised. Her own son came across the situation where 4 out of 5 universities had no other way to apply to them except online.

Image by whurleyvision via Flickr

Mobiles and consoles are now seen as 'the net', and provide 'Google in the pocket'. Nancy then went on to say that it's not just in the pocket, but also in the kitchen, bedroom...and bathroom!!!
Nancy covered the four 'truths' of cybersafety. The message is that if something worries a person that is online, that they should tell a significant adult about it. The problem is that many people speak to peers rather than approaching 'authority' figures.
In a short survey conducted with the audience when showed an image of a girl at a school crossing, about 42% felt the child was safe, for a range of reasons such as visibility, and adult supervision. If the adults are taken out of the picture, 42% also agreed that she was safe...but with the caveat that it depended on her prior experience and training. The discussion was then tied to the three elements of learn, guide, protect, and then Nancy introduced  another picture with two young students in front of a laptop with no clues around external context, and asked "how safe are these girls?". It was interesting the discussion in the backchannel around this point including "depend on many other surrounding factors", and "Very few kids know the problems...just think they do".

Image via Wikipedia

From the NZ Curriculum key competencies Nancy showed nine points about what makes a digital citizen. On the list 'ethical behaviours' and 'critical thinking' were highlighted in a different colour. Research Nancy has conducted suggests that the ICT words should be taken out of the list of digital citizen descriptors, and that the behaviours described should be across the board, not purely online. A diagram was used to illustrate some of the key aspects of cybersafety conceptually. The combination of key competencies and digital capability are shown as all parts of the same conversation.

In further research Netsafe has conducted, the percentage of educators who believed that their students understand ICT use agreements, about 30% disagreed or were not sure that students understood the ICT use agreement that they had signed. The real challenge around the concept of digital citizenship has to bring in the context in which you are working. Nancy shared two images, one of a nude male and one of a sculpture and asked participants to think about their reaction if they saw a 7 year old student looking at the images if they were studying photography or classics, and in a situation where they weren't. Would we react any differently? If someone else who was unaware of the context in which they were being used saw the 7 year old student viewing, how might they react? A really interesting point!

Bullying was discussed, and it was suggested that there is often a small, identifiable group that is often the main source of bullying within a school. As such, targeted education around bullying has been found to be effective. Surveys were also identified as a good first step to outlining a school culture - and the surveys can be (and have) be conducted and presented by the students themselves. Other strategies are more senior students working with younger students to help them with cybersafety and provide peer support.

Image via Wikipedia

Involving parents was seen as an interesting challenge. Willowbank School in Auckland was talked about as an example where the school is using Facebook to communicate with parents. It's a primary school, so there was a lot of discussion with the students as why this is happening. The parents have responded very positively around the enhancement to the communication. Bring your own device was mentioned as another challenge (as well as the incredible benefits) - but again, it was seen as incredibly important to involve parents.
The session was tied up with a discussion around some of the key points that had been raised, including the issue of support within schools for teachers who become enthusiastic about innovations, only to not receive the support and become dispirited.
A very informative, thought-provoking session with a very lively backchannel! If you are interested in finding out more about what happened during the session, please access the recording at:

Digital Citizenship and Online Safety (a session facilitated by Nancy Groh)

Image by hazelowendmc via Flickr

Today was the first session of the Paepae Hot Seat session, Digital Citizenship and Online Safety, kindly facilitated by Nancy Groh from Netsafe. Netsafe are the developers of the Learn, Guide, Protect site, where educators and the wider community can share resources around digital citizenship and online safety. The idea is that educators develop "an online repository of material schools can use and adapt to promote a student-centred approach to digital citizenship and cyber safety" (Nancy Groh).

Nancy opened by asking everyone to introduce themselves and where they currently are, in the chat box - a nice way to see who is doing what as well. She then moved on to a short re-cap of using computers and cybersafety since 1998. It was amazing to see that no-one in the group were using computers in classrooms in 1998, and no one had cell phones. The phenomenal changes since then were then described, and ICT was seen as the norm, and those that don't have Internet access are now marginalised. Her own son came across the situation where 4 out of 5 universities had no other way to apply to them except online.

Image by whurleyvision via Flickr

Mobiles and consoles are now seen as 'the net', and provide 'Google in the pocket'. Nancy then went on to say that it's not just in the pocket, but also in the kitchen, bedroom...and bathroom!!!
Nancy covered the four 'truths' of cybersafety. The message is that if something worries a person that is online, that they should tell a significant adult about it. The problem is that many people speak to peers rather than approaching 'authority' figures.
In a short survey conducted with the audience when showed an image of a girl at a school crossing, about 42% felt the child was safe, for a range of reasons such as visibility, and adult supervision. If the adults are taken out of the picture, 42% also agreed that she was safe...but with the caveat that it depended on her prior experience and training. The discussion was then tied to the three elements of learn, guide, protect, and then Nancy introduced  another picture with two young students in front of a laptop with no clues around external context, and asked "how safe are these girls?". It was interesting the discussion in the backchannel around this point including "depend on many other surrounding factors", and "Very few kids know the problems...just think they do".

Image via Wikipedia

From the NZ Curriculum key competencies Nancy showed nine points about what makes a digital citizen. On the list 'ethical behaviours' and 'critical thinking' were highlighted in a different colour. Research Nancy has conducted suggests that the ICT words should be taken out of the list of digital citizen descriptors, and that the behaviours described should be across the board, not purely online. A diagram was used to illustrate some of the key aspects of cybersafety conceptually. The combination of key competencies and digital capability are shown as all parts of the same conversation.

In further research Netsafe has conducted, the percentage of educators who believed that their students understand ICT use agreements, about 30% disagreed or were not sure that students understood the ICT use agreement that they had signed. The real challenge around the concept of digital citizenship has to bring in the context in which you are working. Nancy shared two images, one of a nude male and one of a sculpture and asked participants to think about their reaction if they saw a 7 year old student looking at the images if they were studying photography or classics, and in a situation where they weren't. Would we react any differently? If someone else who was unaware of the context in which they were being used saw the 7 year old student viewing, how might they react? A really interesting point!

Bullying was discussed, and it was suggested that there is often a small, identifiable group that is often the main source of bullying within a school. As such, targeted education around bullying has been found to be effective. Surveys were also identified as a good first step to outlining a school culture - and the surveys can be (and have) be conducted and presented by the students themselves. Other strategies are more senior students working with younger students to help them with cybersafety and provide peer support.

Image via Wikipedia

Involving parents was seen as an interesting challenge. Willowbank School in Auckland was talked about as an example where the school is using Facebook to communicate with parents. It's a primary school, so there was a lot of discussion with the students as why this is happening. The parents have responded very positively around the enhancement to the communication. Bring your own device was mentioned as another challenge (as well as the incredible benefits) - but again, it was seen as incredibly important to involve parents.
The session was tied up with a discussion around some of the key points that had been raised, including the issue of support within schools for teachers who become enthusiastic about innovations, only to not receive the support and become dispirited.
A very informative, thought-provoking session with a very lively backchannel! If you are interested in finding out more about what happened during the session, please access the recording by clicking HERE.

A guide for teachers and those faciltiating PLD: ICT Transforming Education

This practical guide has something for nearly everyone involved in education, including teachers, principals, deans, and policy writers. As well as strategies for integrating ICT enhanced learning and teaching into curricula, the guide also has a variety of resources and ideas, which "in the hands of good teachers, may bring about profound changes and so transform education for ever" (p. 2).


ICT Transforming Education

ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching: The ICTELT mindmap discussed

Experiences around piloting the ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching model and framework revealed that practitioners were often at a loss as to what a design might ‘look’ like, and discussions tended to be esoteric and scattered. It was suggested therefore that teams draw up a mindmap that identified the main functionality and design of the programme or session they had chosen. However, some teams found this a challenge, so a mindmap 'model' (http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcqj5jv4_131d2686rhf or you can access the full map in Mindomo - ) was developed.

The online mindmap is adaptable, and users are encouraged to change it to suit their purposes. The range of spaces, activities, tasks and interactions illustrated in the mindmap is extensive. However, rather than expecting that all will be used simultaneously, users are guided to select the items and tools carefully, and to ‘mix and match’ to suit circumstances and to change or omit any elements that are irrelevant or unsuitable. Although the central starting point of the mindmap is labelled ‘course’ it could just as easily be a Community of Practice, a department, or a support unit.

This video - http://blip.tv/file/4305734, after briefly visiting some of the principles and current research that underpins the design, then takes the watcher on a guided tour of the mindmap. The mindmap has been piloted with virtual community space design, as well as with academic programmes and activities. Anecdotal feedback to date suggests that teams thought it was a great help to 'see' their design, and visualise all of the disparate but interconnected elements. It was also a great springboard for discussions about the pedagogical reasons for including elements such as, for example, informal, social spaces.

How do I set about designing a course in my Learning Management System?

I have been working on a process model and framework, adapted from earlier examples, developed to help answer the question “Where do I start?” for teachers who are unfamiliar with adapting education resources to make effective use of ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching.

This video - http://blip.tv/file/4305523- very briefly shows an example of a Moodle course that has been designed using the ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching approach, as well as exploring a couple of the tools that could be used by teachers (hosted at: http://efest2008collaboratingbydesign.pbworks.com/FrontPage).
Employing a scaffolded approach appropriate for working in small teams of teachers, or as individuals, the guiding questions of the ICTELT model form the foundation for collaborative discussion of design choices, and the incorporation of a range of pedagogical approaches with a variety of tools.



The model and framework can be used with new and/or existing programmes, modules, units, sessions, or learning objects, but initially practitioners are encouraged to trial the process on a small scale. Please contact me if you have any questions: http://www.ethosconsultancynz.com/profile/HazelOwen.

Virtually Engaged! Building Virtual Professional Development Communities

This is the Prezi I developed to go with a presentation I gave at Shar-E-Fest. The Prezi resource was designed to be used as a presentation at the 'top' level, but if you look closer, and drill down (a bit like a treasure hunt), you will find heaps more detail. Have fun!!!

The abstract reads as follows: "Current models of Professional Development (PD) provision are being evaluated. As a result, one of the mainstays of education intuitions, the generic workshop, has been identified as having number of fundamental flaws. Hand-in-hand with this is the request by teachers for increased PD to help them with ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching (ICTELT) projects. The Virtual Professional Development (VPD) Model has been developed in response to these factors. VPD is based around a community of learning, with a goal to provide peer-supported PD around ICTELT.

There are currently ten tertiary, secondary and primary school teachers from a variety of locations ranging from Kaitaia to Canterbury involved in this pilot initiative. The national facilitator works with these teachers to develop their own highly-contextualised learning plans. After an initial face-to-face meeting the group now meets regularly using the Internet based webinar tool Adobe Connect to share skills, experiences and ideas and to enable peer mentoring relationships to build. Facilitated sessions are at a time and place which is flexible to each teacher\'s needs. These exchanges are complemented by interactions within a social networking space (Ning), as well as through access to their own \'sandpit\' courses in a learning management system (Moodle), where they have the opportunity to experiment and try out skills before going live with learners. Skill-sets and experience vary in the VPD group, and this is offering great opportunities for participants to take on facilitator and learner roles.

The main factors that are becoming apparent from the evaluations to date is that the VPD model could be effective for future PD initiatives. However unlike generic workshops, VPD is mainly 1) about affective factors - community, belonging and relationships; 2) a personalised, contextualised curriculum; and 3) an experience where upskilling takes second place to a teacher\'s own learning \'journey\' which is all about their identity as educators and their beliefs about learning."

Virtually Engaged! Building Virtual Professional Development Communities on Prezi

Please cite as: Owen, H. (2010, 27-28 September). Virtually Engaged! Building Virtual Professional Development Communities. Paper presented at the Shar-E-fest Conference.

Online course peer review as a PD process (Stephen Bright at Sharefest)

Stephen Bright opened with some key questions around the case study (funded by ASCILITE). and a wonderfully visual metaphor of the twisted rope and the fibres of the rope twined together make it stronger than the whole of the parts. Stephen teaches at Bethlehem College in Tauranga.

Stephen conducted a small-scale case study with six teaching staff who had a range of eLearning experience from beginner to advanced. The purpose was to develop a framework and process for collegial review of teacher presence in online courses. It was frames in terms of PD rather than QA. The study was conducted to increase the quality and quantity of feedback that teachers get about their courses. Most of the QA stuff tends to be a check list, so re-framing it as PD was a way of making it less imposing. The teachers made their own checklist and the process it was used. Stephen recommended the Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) eBook as a primer for eLearning and a model. He aslso used the Seven Principles for Good Practice from Chickering and Gamson (1987) around undergraduate education, engagement, and active learning. Stephen Marshall's Maturity Model was also suggested as a benchmark.



Of the seven people involved, each was given one principle each, then they met to have a brainstorm, and collated their ideas in a wiki. The final step was going through and doing a rating process (what are the must haves, and what are the nice to haves?). This resulted in primary indicators (30 - the must haves) , and secondary indicators (60 - the nice to haves).



The audience discussed how teachers could set high expectations - feedback, timeliness, exemplars, and models, and generic feedback comments in neutral spaces for example. The Collegial Appraisal process was based around a range of roles, wh8ich took about 8.5 hous of face-to-face time and 3.5 hours contributing to the wiki. They spent an average of 2 hours each on self-appraisal and 4.5 hours for 3 review meetings.



You can ' do it yourself' - you don't have to have best practice frameworks, and you end up with more ownership when the teachers develop the frameworks themselves. The framework often ends up as a good match with other benchmark models (e.g. eMM). The staff who participated felt empowered rather than evaluated, and the resulting fraework ends up being available for institutional use.

The full paper is available to download as a .pdf from the Ascilite 2008 proceedings.

Does ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching Improve Learning? Evaluating student learning outcomes

Achieving higher learning through the use of computers: Image via Wikipedia
When asked if ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching (ICTELT) enhances a student's learning experience, the answer would probably be, from many teachers, a reasonably confident 'yes'. However, if asked if ICTELT enhances student learning outcomes, a lot of teachers would either be neutral or undecided, for several reasons including the reasonably small amount of robust research in this area. (Please see Terry Freedman's post "Does ICT improve learning" for a more detailed discussion about this subject, including definitions of 'ICT', learning contexts, use and application, roles, and beliefs about how people learn).

 

 

Evaluating student outcomes...how?

Image source

There are a several ways that you can evaluate student learning outcomes, some of which include large-scale, formal research studies. If you are a busy teacher, though, and would like to measure student learning outcomes in a way that informs the design, facilitation, evaluation, and assessment in the programme you teach, you may want to consider action research (click HERE for a link to a guide for teachers wanting to do action research) or some form of evaluation around your students' learning outcomes. The following sections are designed to give some suggestions and considerations, as well as links to tools to help you.

Context

Image source

Context is a fundamental factor to consider when looking at student learning outcomes. The problem is that notion of context is incredibly broad and includes the inter-connected aspects of the class, school / institution, parents, and wider community, as well as virtual spaces and global communities. Context also includes tangible and intangible factors such as students' backgrounds, experiences, skills, digital literacy, interests, likes and dislikes, access to ICTELT, hopes, boredoms, learning style, family troubles, previous school experiences (Jardine, 2009, p.1). These sit alongside a teacher's / facilitator's own experience, their comfort levels with ICTELT, their digital literacy, how they facilitate sessions, and whether sharing, creativity, discussion and discovery are encouraged. With the latter, these are approaches in their own right and have been shown to be effective when used as part of the learning process; therefore, if they are introduced at the same time other changes are made within the learning environment the validity of an evaluation can be called into question.

Image source

So, when sketching the picture of student learning outcomes in your context, it is essential to describe your context as vividly as possible, while also asking yourself the questions:

• Is the evaluation I am conducting actually measuring my own ability to facilitate an ICT enhanced learning session? Or,
• Is the evaluation I am conducting actually measuring the effectiveness of VPD for me? Or,
• Is the evaluation I am conducting actually measuring interlinking factors such as 'influence of parents' rather than the effect of ICTELT on my students' outcomes?

That is not to say you should avoid collecting feedback and information from as many angles and stakeholders as you can. This could be done in conversation for more informal input, or could be collected in surveys, discussion forums or focus groups. The description of your context might be included in your own reflective blog.

Surveys

Image source

You may decide that you would like to survey your students about some of their attitudes towards ICTELT. The following are some example surveys that you could adapt for use with your students. They will probably not be totally relevant to your context, so you will need to change some questions, but they may give you some ideas. (Hint - Google forms, Survey Monkey, or Kwik surveys are useful online tools for administering surveys online).

• Computer attitude questionnaire (Grades 9-12) (.pdf file to download)
• Computer attitude questionnaire (Grades 4-8) (.pdf file to download)
• Young children's computer inventory (.pdf file to download)
• Information and Communication Technology Usage Survey (Primary/elementary school students) (online)

Reflective practice - some tips and examples

Image source

What is critical reflective practice? Critical reflective practice has been theorised and written about, and a lot of research has been done around it (if you are interested to know more you can start by accessing this online article "Reflection in Education"). For a briefer multimedia-rich introduction you can access the following resources the first one of which is a general introduction, and the second one a more practical 'how to write reflective posts' with a quiz for you to measure your own preferences around Kolb's (adapted by Pedler) Learning Cycle. You may already be a fully-fledged reflective practitioner, but it's always worth brushing up on skills. On the other hand, you may not really have done much written self-reflection as part of your professional development. In either case the two following tools are likely to be of interest.

Introduction to critical reflection (Click here to see diagram / concept creators)

How to write a critical reflection (Click here to see the source of the diagram)

There are a couple of really good blogs out there by educators that provide good examples of reflective practice, and which you may want to use as part of your own professional development, as well as for helping to evaluate what is happening in the sessions you facilitate...and others that you engage in.

• In this reflective post Jamin Lietze reflects on an approach he tried with ePortfolios and 3-way interviews with parents, as well as around prioritising time for ePortfolios. Notice the way he describes what has happened, has collected data around it in the case of 'Priorities', and has also made comparisons, and a plan around what he will do differently next time. What is also great is that he has asked for feedback from global peers, and has received some great suggestions, sharing and comments.
• Another post that is well worth looking at is "The Online Professor Takes a Course", where Cindy Emmans reflects on her experiences of studying online, what she learned, and has done since doing the course (including some research into what makes an effective online student. She concludes with a great discussion around design, facilitation, assessment and evaluation of online courses. A recommended read, as well as something that gives a solid example of what a reflective post can be developed into.

If you are interested in using reflection with students (which of could also be a form of evaluation of your teaching practice), Chrissy Hellyer has put together this guide for her own students to help them get started with reflective writing.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Action research plan lynda kieler 3 (slideshare.net)
• Learning Styles and Constructionism (weber.k12.ut.us)

Some strategies for evaluating teaching practice and student learning outcomes by Ethos Consultancy NZ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Achieving higher learning through the use of computers: Image via Wikipedia

Where to next? The Shape of future Virtual Professional Development - a conversation

Image by hazelowendmc via Flickr

Please jump in and take a part in the conversation about the future of Virtual Professional Development (VPD). There are several slides, each with a question and a related picture - you can choose to answer one, several, or all of the questions, either with text, video or audio, and we'd really appreciate your contribution to the discussion. Although the VPD project is being trialled in NZ at the moment (see this video for an overview) it would be relevant in pretty much any country with an education system.

Fun, friendship and the future: Meeting in Wellington (July 2010)

Image by hazelowendmc via Flickr

The second face-to-face meeting of the VPD teachers' community was held Thursday 10th and Friday 11th June 2010, at the Brentwood Hotel in Kilbirnie, Wellington. Nine of the VPD teachers attended the event (see Agenda below), along with Eddie Reisch and Hazel Owen. Unfortunately, Merryn Dunmill was crook, unable to attend, and sorely missed.

We had all learned a lot from the previous meeting, and the room was set out in groups of tables (rather than a large horseshoe) for maximum discussion and sharing. Surprising what a difference it makes. All participants had been asked to bring their own laptop, and only one person, Ken, had problems getting on to the wireless network...which worked! (Huge sigh of relief from everyone - except Ken).


The first day started with a welcome and introduction to the two days, and a 'hello' to Chitose Izuno and Clarence Yates who had not attended the first face-to-face meeting in December 2009. I then handed over to the teachers while they each gave a brief overview of what they had been doing with students and the results they were getting. This seemed to work well, with a lot of discussion happening throughout each overview, as well as questions and suggestions. One teacher commented that he thought the "the informal discussions with a 'light touch' direction was beneficial as it allowed people to talk and discuss which is where we all have something to say".


The next part of the day was the hands-on active sessions.Everyone had been briefed prior to the meeting as follows:

Prepare an 45-minute-long (max) session that will actively engage the rest of the group. The hour includes time for you to set up the task, and for people in the group to go off and work together, come back for discussion, and finally for some sort of debrief. Please do not choose or focus on teaching us how to use a specific tool :-) Rather, think about different ways of engaging the group - it could be, for example, an activity where you ask us to research something (e.g. pedagogy as a concept, or teach us a language, or your favourite pastime or sport)...and the collaboration could make use of something such as Google Docs or a wiki - anything that would enhance the learning experience for the group. The world is your oyster.

The idea was to encourage the sharing of effective practice by doing rather than telling or showing. It was hoped it would also motivate people to reflect on their projects, and to evaluate what they are doing with students with more depth, as well as good opportunities for feedback and suggestions from the group.

After Joel, Jarad, and Sonia's very different, engaging sessions, the last task of the day was for the participants to work in groups of three or four. I'd already selected a convenor for each group, and created wiki spaces in the VPD Moodle where there was a scenario based task for each group to complete around the evaluation of the ICTELT VPD initiative to date and ideas for a national roll out. The scenario was:

Your group has been tasked with setting up a ICT enhanced learning and teaching Virtual Professional Development initiative to teachers in all education sectors in New Zealand. You have a limited budget, which means limited personnel. You have access to and use of a suite of Web 2.0 and online tools and resources (including Adobe Connect, Skype, Moodle, Mahara, Audacity and Jing).

Consider some, or all, of the following:

• How will you complete the roll out?
• What would you need to put in place first?
• Who would be involved?
• What would the national model 'look' like?
• What practical guidelines would you provide to 1) teachers who want to participate in VPD; 2) schools who would like their teachers to
  participate in VPD; 3) the national PD coordinator; 4) PD facilitators; 5) anyone else you think needs to be guided.

You have 30 MINUTES to complete your mission!!

Given that it was the end of the day it was great to see everyone working so well together, and the depth of discussion and the ideas that came out of the exercise were really valuable. One teacher commented that in his group when they realised it was 5pm there were amazed. They had been so absorbed in the task that the time had flown by, and they reckoned that the sign of a good activity is one where you have to prise the participants from their chairs to get them to stop! He also felt it was positive to be asked for input into shaping the bigger picture ' stuff'. I was really pleased as I was not sure how well the activity would work, especially iin the 'graveyard' spot.

One of the awesome things was that the conversations continued in the bar and over dinner in the evening. Several teachers mentioned verbally that they had explored many different approaches, swapped experiences, and developed ideas and strategies throughout the two days, but in particular over coffee and mealtimes, and someone commented about "the inspiration and experiences shared by all".


Day Two
Day two began with everyone completing a reflective blog post in the Ning about their experiences during Day one. The rich quality of most of the blog posts was indicative of the level of enjoyment and satisfaction with the first day, which I found particularly reassuring.


The hands on sessions for the day went well, with a lot more questions and discussions around student learning, the purpose and form(s) of assessment, classroom practice, literacies, engagement and a plethora of other education-related subjects. The sessions, I believe empowered the teachers and encouraged everyone to have a voice, even the most shy - I just facilitated and kept time. It was also a reaffirmation that modelling the type of role that teachers might take, and they as learners themselves enjoyed, might inform their own practice.

The final two activities for the two-day meeting were a discussion around the question of the future of the VPD initiative and what it might look like, facilitated by Eddie. A discussion forum was set up to answer the questions, which included:

• Will the VPD initiative be continued?
• If it is going to be continued, what will it 'look' like?
• Would you be willing to be a mentor for a new cohort of VPD teachers?
• Will you create communities beyond this?
• Will it 'die' if there is no funding?
• What would a model of VPD that coordinated all teachers who are doing similar innovative things look like?
• How will the focus on the students and the pedagogy be maintained? (rather than focus on tools, for example?)

There was an intense discussion with the group emphasising how valuable the VPD initiative was for them, and that they had got a huge amount of being a part of it. All the teachers said they would be willing to mentor other teachers, and also made suggestions how this might be implemented (a couple of which can be read in the replies in the discussion forum). It was exciting and heartening. After seeing the progress and shifts many of the teachers have made in their thinking, beliefs, practice and skill sets, it was wonderful to hear that they wanted this to continue and were will to contribute.

After the final wrap up, and the presentation of the chocolate fish to Nigel Bailey who was voted as having the most engaging hands on session for the two days, we said our thank yous and fare thee wells. One teacher commented that:

"This second session was much more useful than the first in Dec 2009. We have had time to try our ideas, to make our mistakes and to reflect upon our success. An overall atmosphere of confidence has given some much-needed direction to the workshop, and with some meaningful outcomes".

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Joel's 45 min session was around "What are our students using?" and began by getting participants to brainstorm all the software, Web 2.0 platforms and tools, hardware etc that they know of and type up the answers into a Google Doc, the following step was to identify from the list everything they used regularly, and then those things they thought the students used often. The session was very collaborative, with the Google Doc projected up on the screen so everyone could see additions and edits as they happened. The session went rather over time, but was really useful for those teachers who were not so familiar with synchronous blended collaborative approaches.

Jarad's 45 min session started with an explanation of the difference between direct and inference information "Engaging comprehension". Jarad then gave out some gorgeous books that he uses with his students and asked the group to work in pairs to develop quizzes around the books and the notion of direct and inference information. To develop the quizzes we used Pro Profs quiz maker. One participant commented that this was the "first online test maker that can be adapted for senior math, allowing for written answers as well as multiguess and fill-the-gap". To finish up Jarad went through one of the quizzes (which ended up being a "math test that I may try on my ten year olds") to show how the feedback was incorporated. There was a lot of discussion and a high level of engagement throughout this session.

Sonia's 45 min session, "Exploring the building blocks of life" was all hosted in Moodle where she had built an integrated set of activities around the function, composition and purpose of DNA. There were several links out to interactive activities and scenarios some with a 'narrative' focus and a murder mystery to solve that had many of the group enthralled. Sonia facilitated smoothly, fielded questions, and discussed ways of using some of the approaches with students. It was a great opportunity for everyone to try a number of learning approaches in a hands on forum. Sonia had set up a forum to collect feedback, but time was not her friend and there was no opportunity for people to post to it.

Clarrie's 45 min session around "Active promotion" encouraged exploration, creativity and encouraged people in the group to think about promoting themselves in different ways. In particular Clarrie facilitated everyone to work in groups, and to re-think the traditional CV, and moved between the groups throughout the whole session talking over ideas. The conversations and ideas were recorded in the Ning (for example: http://virtualicteltpd.ning.com/profiles/blogs/an-out-there-cv). All of the groups were enthusiastic, and some became quite excited by some of the potential approaches they formulated.

Amaia's 45 min session, "Scintillating Spanish" was hosted in the Moodle, and began with Amaia introducing us to her language, her discipline, and her passion. Each group had to choose a country, and to research the country, cultures and language. A highlight of this session was the way Amaia demonstrated how to personalise the session when she gave us her address in Spain to search on in Google Earth. The visual aspect was also really important as participants viewed some of the amazing architectural structures that are visible in Google Earth.

Ken Jones's 45 min session, "The New Zealand National Anthem" started with the history of the National Anthem and some of the controversies surrounding it. Ken had put everything together in a Google presentation, shared the document with everyone, and then gave out tasks to groups to complete in the document. For example, one group had to find the words of the anthem in Maori and sung in Maori. The whole group then re-convened to look at each other's contributions, and then stood to sing the anthem in Maori. It was a really interactive, informative, engaging, and relevant session.

Chitose's 45 min session, "The Japanese School System" was hosted in Moodle and was staged, clearly showing the learning outcomes, describing the task, and the activities:

• Make 3 groups of 3 people, and get 1 group to look at primary, 1 group to look at secondary and the final group to look at tertiary.
• Collect material and put it in your wiki. (15 minutes) See the reference in the below.
• Look at the other groups' wikis. (5 minutes)
• Discussion of the Japanese and New Zealand education systems each sector in Forum in the Moodle. (10 minutes)
• Evaluation of the session in Forum in the Moodle. (10 minutes)

Chitose kept the momentum of the session going, while also circulating and discussing ideas and answering questions about education in Japan. The evaluation of the session speaks for itself: "Awesome flow for the activity! You've thought it out very carefully. You have used the tools in Moodle very well. I'd like to investigate the comparisons further for me to perhaps influence Māori education in NZ. Well done!!". And: "I liked the fact that we got to zoom off and search for info and then blast it back into the wiki - I kind of felt like it was a competition with the 3 groups going at once so I really went for it! strange how that happens...I think it was really great - thanks for the hard work in setting it up! ".

Nigel's 45 min session focussed on the tool, "Prezi in action" rather than setting up activities per se. However, everyone really enjoyed exploring some of the potential of the tool. Nigel's session was in fact voted the most engaging of the two days (for which he received some chocolate fish).

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ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching Virtual Professional Development Community

Wellington 2010

Thursday 10th and Friday 11th June 2010
Location: Brentwood Hotel (www.brentwoodhotel.co.nz), 16 Kemp St, Kilbirnie 6022, New Zealand‎ - (04) 920 0400‎
Wireless Internet access from 9am to 5pm

You can download a copy of this agenda by clicking this link: AgendafortheMeetinginWellingtonJune2010.pdf

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Thursday 10th June

08:00 – 09:00 Coffee and chat - Brentwood Hotel, Wellington
09:00 – 10:30 Welcome and quick overview of the 2 days. Participant snapshots - everyone makes a micro-presentation of no more than seven minutes each on what they have been working on and their learners' reactions (timing strict!! :-) The following order please: Joel, Merryn, Jarad, Robin, Sonia, Chitose, Nigel, Kenneth, Amaia, Clarence, Hazel.
10:30 – 11:15 Joel's 45 min session: What are our students using?
11:15 – 12:00 Merryn's 45 min session: Copyright and performance arts works
12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH
13:00 – 13:45 Jarad's 45 min session: Engaging comprehension
13:45 – 14:30 Sonia's 45 min session: Exploring the building blocks of life
14:30 – 15:30 Evaluation of the ICTELT VPD initiative to date - focus group
15:30 – 16:00 AFTERNOON TEA
16:00 – 17:00 Evaluation of the ICTELT VPD initiative to date (cont.): Ideas for a national roll out - Wiki in Moodle
17:00 – 17:15 Close of the day
19:00 – 21:30 DINNER for the group (Brentwood Hotel restaurant)

Friday 11th June

09:00 – 09:45 Start of day two - welcome/evaluation of previous day - Ning Discussion Forum
09:45 – 10:30 Clarrie's 45 min session: Active promotion
10:30 – 11:15 Amaia's 45 min session: Scintillating Spanish
11:15 – 12:00 Ken Jones's 45 min session: The New Zealand National Anthem
12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH
13:00 – 13:45 Chitose's 45 min session: The Japanese School System
13:45 – 14:30 Nigel's 45 min session: Prezi in action
14:30 – 15:00 Where to next with the ICTELT VPD: What do you want out of the next 6 months?
15:00 – 15:30 AFTERNOON TEA & vote on most engaging 45 min session - Brentwood Hotel
15:30 – 16:00 Wrap up and close of the day

Attendees:
Joel Dodd
Merryn Dunmill (unable to attend due to ill health)
Jarad Chittenden
Robin Ohia
Sonia Foote
Chitose Izuno
Nigel Bailey
Kenneth Jones
Amaya Sasia
Clarence Yates
Eddie Reisch
Hazel Owen

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Virtual Professional Development - what can that look like?

Image by hazelowendmc via Flickr

Virtual Professional Development (VPD) is a concept that can offer opportunities for teachers and other education practitioners to focus on things that are relevant to their students, their students' needs, and their own spheres of interest and beliefs about learning.

One project (in which Ethos has taken a key role) that has been trialling how a VPD community of interest might function, and how it might 'look' is the ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching Virtual Professional Development Project currently underway in NZ, with funding from the Ministry of Education.


Communities of Interest, especially those where the formation of learning communities and consequent achievement of formal and informal learning outcomes, is central, are essentially non-hierarchical. The Virtual Professional Development (VPD) model is, therefore, attempting to locate non-hierarchical communities within hierarchical ones. Although, ideally, it might be suggested that a shift in the existing education paradigm would be a positive move, this is unlikely to happen within the timeframe of the development of the VPD framework. However, this does not create an insurmountable barrier, but rather is an indication of the types and level of support that may be needed to help VPD participant teachers to transition into a more fluid model of professional development, as well as coping with some of the restrictions and frustrations they may consequently encounter.

The focus within the communities is firmly on relationship building, contextualised learning, and personalised, negotiated learning outcomes for teachers (as well as their students). One of the key benefits of the VPD model is that the PD is completely contextualised within a teacher's school culture. Learning outcomes are negotiated by the VPD participants, and the skills they identify as important are directly related to the students with whom they are working. Facilitated sessions are at a time and place which is flexible to each teacher's needs. As a result, the content, tools and meaning of the PD are subsumed within the teacher's function of being part of their own school's/institution's community, rather than being the central focus as can happen with more traditional approaches to PD via generic workshops. Teachers will be scaffolded to help them and their school identify learning requirements, and access and share PD focussed on the needs of their students and school community (e.g. the eCapability Model). In turn, this will help schools align their planning with government priorities and initiatives such as national standards, NZC, Ka Hikitia and the Pasifika Education Plan.

To see this video full size go to: http://blip.tv/file/3785995

Sonia Foote's students get into Moodle: Experiences and evaluation

Level 3 Biology Moodle course

Sonia Foote is a teacher at the Mangakino Area School in New Zealand, where she teaches Science, Biology, and Human Biology to years 9 to 13.

Sonia has been working on and trialling with Junior Science and Level 3 Biology students her Moodle site and resources, which she has been designing and building over the last few weeks. It has quite a journey as she has been working out the most effective design to use as well as how to actually create a course in Moodle. At every step of the way, Sonia has been asking for evaluation from her students, and with this feedback she can't go far
wrong.

Her Level 3 biology students have jumped straight into Moodle. One student in particular has used Moodle in the past with a math teacher/course and was extremely positive about the experience, saying that students really enjoyed math with this teacher and using Moodle. Such was this student's enthusiasm, she jumped into Moodle as soon as she got her log in and was trying out all the quizzes, and activities. The other students have followed suit.

Junior Science Moodle Course

With Sonia's Junior Science students, however, it has been rather frustrating as students found it tricky to copy the URL from the board, and as most of the students don't have working email she couldn't send them the link and log in details. Once everyone had typed in the correct URL, worked out their user name and password, and accessed the course, they then relied on her to tell them where to go - even though she had shown them, prior to going to the computer lab, what the Moodle site looked like, and what they could do there.

From my experiences with students I have always found it necessary to allocate the first couple of sessions to helping students log in, and work out for themselves how best to use the environment for their learning. I've discovered that it may take up to a month before learners gain in confidence and become more self-directed. The students will get there, though. A screen capture video of the login process might be a useful way having a reminder for students, and to save teachers from having to repeat the same information many times over.

Video Quizzess

Discussion forum

Some activities from Sonia's Moodle spaces

Sonia has been focussing putting logical groups of resources together in the topic areas of Moodle, and has used a range of media and activities to help engage students and to work towards meeting the needs of a variety of students' learning styles. She is also keen to build on the interactivity for students that she already has within the course, and is planning to ask students to use a more inquiry-based approach (using the wiki in Moodle), and working towards getting students to create some of the content/exemplars for future students.

Find out how to use Moodle

If you are interested in finding more out about how to use Moodle, you may find the following resources useful:

• VIDEOS: Shawn Brandt has created over 30 demonstration screencast videos around how to use Moodle
• VIDEOS: Moodle for NZ Schools also have a range of screencasts
• READING: A beginners guide to Moodle (nicely formatted): http://issuu.com/m.unsy/docs/moodle_beginners_guide.
• FLASH Videos: These are really clear videos (but you'll need Flash
  player installed on your machine, and they are specific to the ISU -
  same actions, just looks slightly different): http://courses.isucomm.iastate.edu/course/view.php?id=698. They also have a downloadable .pdf that is worth looking at: http://courses.isucomm.iastate.edu/file.php/698/Moodle_Guide_2009.pdf.
• PRINT or read online: This one is slightly more advanced, but much more thorough - Moodle 1.8 Teacher Manual: https://moodle.sbc.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=8087

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Contrasting experiences of blended learning (Kehrwald, Simpson and Rawlins)

Image by hazelowendmc via Flickr

Benjamin Kehrwald, Mary Simpson, and Peter Rawlins used a symposium approach to look at a practical examples of blended learning.

They used the Simpson and Anderson (2009, p. 99) definition of blended learning. The study itself was based around an ambitious project that sought to redesign the 4 year BEd programme and to use a single common online learning environment that catered from Palmerston North, Hawkes Bay, and other campus students in an area where they accessed all of their papers, communicated with each other and with academic staff etc.

Data was collected using a questionnaire, followed by an interview for students, and a similar approach for teachers. The aim was to drill down past the quantitative data that had been collected.

Some interested things that arose from the data were questions around what blended actually is, and what we collectively believe to be blended learning, and who the 'we' is. An example of a staff answer" I think there are shared understandings developing in pockets but I think within courses people develop an modify and evolve shared understandings". Definitions of blended learning from staff was "...different philosophies applied by each of the eLearning facilitators"; and "...when people come from different subjects, discipline areas the task is much more difficult because it demands understand of each other's disciplinary approached and the constraints of time are very tight..."

Student views included "the use of [online] enrollment was as a secondary where you could do some extra homework there, if you didn't touch it a all it didn't make much difference to how you went through the class until the second semester" where a blended approach was expected. There were emerging expectations, and the notion of being confronted with alternative expectations, especially where there was a conflict between what was considered face-to-face and extramural, and whether one should 'look' like the other. In part this demonstrates a limited understanding amongst students around what blended learning is, but, surely, it also points up the necessity for programmes to be up front around what is going to happen, how students are going to interact, and not make assumptions around understanding of academic vocabulary?

Mary Simpson considered aspects such as consistency of the vision, which would in turn build a shared understanding of what blended learning comprises.  The shared vision included team-based, collegial writing which would be a huge challenge in the university environment. The findings showed that faculty were willing to face the task, but that they found it exhausting, gruelling, and logistically frustrating, while also be enlightening, enriching, and enhanced practice in unexpected ways.

Peter Rawlins gave an overview of how he worked with the data from the study. In every paper there was an expectation that there will be some online aspect. Three-quarters of the students said that they went online more than once a day, and these students were equally spread between internal and extramural students. There was a significant number of students agreed that the online learning helped them succeed, although the distance students were more convinced. In addition, there was strong support that the material and the discussions were useful, but there was approximately 29% who disagreed that this was the case. The students value the face-to-face time, but they do also see the value of the online environment. It is a complex, interconnected picture rather than a simple case of face-to-face or online is 'better', and the students are very aware of this, especially when asked if the environment(s) enriched their learning.

It appears that there is a still a lot to learn around blended learning and offering blended learning programmes. Perhaps we need to engage students a lot more in the development of programmes and programme design from the outset rather than designing courses 'for' them, erring toward a 'one size fits all'? Possibly the group work and collaboration that was trialled within this study could also include either current students or graduates from the programme? If students were brought on board to provide a student voice, to advise and create within a programme at a meta level, in a meaningful way, perhaps retention, success, and a whole raft of affective factors would be enhanced.

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