"'Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.'"

Checking the figures on the MoE site suggests Cj is right about the costliness of the colliding of ICT technology with the technology of school.

"Taking care of the sense" decisions include:

ICT Professional Development Clusters $11M p.a.
A programme to develop teachers’ confidence and capability in using ICT, operating  in 80 clusters across NZ.      
E-learning Teacher Fellowships $1.13M p.a.
10 teachers released per year for research into innovative uses of ICT in teaching and learning.      
The Learning Federation $1.7M p.a.
Joint venture with Australian Federal and State Governments to develop high-quality  digital learning objects for schools.   
Laptops for Principals and Teachers Programme $18M p.a.
27,000 laptops distributed as part of the scheme as at February 2005.      
Digital Opportunities $2.4M p.a.
Currently 11 projects are funded that are using ICT to explore new and innovative  ways of supporting  learning and increasing capability, including:

Even more troubling is that despite the numbers of NZ schools who have been part of the  ICT_PD cluster programme (roughly 50% to date)  when teachers ask for a school they could  visit, there is a struggle to identify places where “learning through ICT” is school wide  practice rather than the result of the isolated actions of a talented individual/s in a couple  of classrooms.  Don't think this is solely a New Zealand issue, we heard the same sort of critique of funded initiatives to integrate ICT in schools when we were at the ICCE 2005 in  Singapore last year.

“despite “decades of funded study that have resulted in many exciting programmes and advances these have not resulted in pervasive, accepted, sustainable, large scale  improvements in actual classroom practice, in a critical mass of effective models for  educational improvement, or in supportive interplay among researchers, schools, families, employers, and communities” Chee-Kit Looi, Wei-Ying Lim and David Huang. Sustainin Innovations in Singapore Schools: Implications for Research Work 2005   

And given the MoE suggestion that ICT professional development clusters comprise about 120 teachers simple maths suggests that justifying “bang for bucks” outcomes is going to be even  more daunting for those 10 MoE e-fellows.

At $113,000.00 per head versus $1,145.83 per head for a teacher in an ICT cluster, the 10  e-fellows are funded at an incredible 100 times higher level than teachers in an ICT pd  cluster.

Perhaps I have been looking in the wrong places, but I dunno if we have seen the “bang for  bucks” outcomes these 100 times higher funding figures promise.

I am looking for refereed and published research findings, new leadership in learning through ICT in actual classroom practice in schools, or even e-fellows acting as agents for  change in a way that clearly distinguishes them from those classroom teachers who have  embraced ICT opportunities through the ICT_PD cluster funding.

Comments

[botts]

i wonder how much of the struggle with ICT can be attributed to Prensky's idea of the Digital Immigrant, insofar as most teachers are of an age at which their experience of technology is still secondhand. In 15 years or so, our schools will be staffed by people who come from a digital age and so maybe then the picture will improve.

have a great day

[Artichoke]

Ahh Botts, you are more patient than I. Dunno but I suspect Prensky’ digital immigrant stuff is a distracter, a false messiah, and a red herring.

The Magnet and I sometimes work in colleges of education with these “much acclaimed future rescuers of ICT” and I have yet to be excited by any technological savvy revealed.

When I puzzled about this I realised that teaching is not a career option for that attracts Prensky’s Digital Immigrants as much as it attracts the Digital Luddites.

Teaching is not what you would recognise as a career pregnant with ICT opportunity.

We could wait forever to be rescued. Reckon the solution might lie in investigating what happens when technologies or (ways of doing things) collide.

• Option 1: Benign Coexistence
  
• Option 2: Mutual Assured Destruction
  
• Option 3: Disengagement
  
• Option 4: New Synergy

At the moment although we seek Option 4: New Synergy, our reluctance to concede anything in the institutionalised process we call “school” means that the collision of ICT and school results in Option 3: Disengagement.

[cj]

It's not Prensky - John Perry Barlow - mid 90's was talkin immigrants and natives. We cited his notion in a paper way back--Aliens in the Classroom.

Back to the main game, i.e. leaving aside them who ply the oil of serpents around all this stuff to make a buck.

I have found over a loooong period that if folk start talking to you in terms of ICTs or whatever acronym you prefer then basically they have either lost the plot or never had it.

Education distinguishes itself by being the only realm of human endeavour which still obsesses about this dang technology. When was the last time you heard a bank manager angsting over integrating ICT into his branch practices? When was the last time you heard a supermarket wracked by indecision about whether or not to use bar codes, auto check outs or digital inventory management? But what about the military (all kneel, for without them all this would be much less than it is)? When did you hear them last deeply worried about them integrating ICTs into their missiles, battle simulations or armageddon scenarios?

I sound like an old 78 I think--but it's about doing school differently and hence my small fetish about knowledge producing schools--which recoginsies all of this as a massive shift in relationships and the importance of rethinking schooling in these terms.

Get kids doing real stuff, with support from actual experts to address serious/interesting local issues/problems/quaestions and the stupid ICT fetish goes away and kids do neat stuff learn way more than stupid systemic metrics could ever hope to put a ruler on....

[cj]

Woops. Almost forgot to say. Great set of numbers Arti. Always worth remembering that any hardware/software costs are a small (<10%) indicator of total cost. Real cost is the people cost which is picked up in those numbers rather well.

[cj]

Apologies. bAd case of the gabs. It's not about "research proof". Most of the research in this area is not worth (insert favourite aphorism). And part of the problem is we use a really dumb, stupid, asinine theory of change, i.e. change agents, early adopters etc. It's intuitively appealing but fundamentally flawed. I won't bore you with detail here but happy to elsewhere.

Basically, how we think about/theorise (ugh) technology really matters. How we think about change matters even more. Not a pretty picture. Sorry.

[botts]

the problem with school versus industry type examples is that industry uses a top down approach in that management says, we will use this technology, and then the staff learn how to use the technology, and life continues. with school, the issue is more dualistic. technology x, being used by , shall we call them "support staff", is fine, but management then expects the teachers to use that same technology in the classrooms and to not only use it to teach but to also teach the use of it.

and then, without cj's experts (and expertise) we are left with a bunch of struggling, disenfranchised, disengaged teachers who pass that same emotiveness on to their students.

we need to deschool society - long live education.

botts

[Munthari]

I'm worried. I feel I'm drowning in data. Literally.
Last nights staff meeting saw a presentation titled 'Leading for Learning':the result of a campus prin and 2 AP's off for a 3-day PD.
Here's what they did.
They studied the data on the first day, did some research, and developed a plan.
Here's what they found. Our kids attendance needs improving (It's in the lower 50% of 'like schools- heaven forebid! Can we discuss the relevance of league-ladder tables and the myth of getting in the 'top50%').If kids miss too much school it effects their learning. (Why are P' and AP's just discovering this??). So, we need a program- a pamphlet and even a fridge magnet (just like all the other successful attendance programs already around).
Can someone do the sums on this one please:
3 Pricipal class x 3 days x 1hr presentation x 70 staff x the time taken for the deluxe powerpoint that went with it.
I would have done it this way: 3 classroom teachers- a cup of coffee at recess- a conversation about attendance- and a brain storm about how to improve it- 20 minutes max.
Ummmmm.
Sorry to lower the intellectual tone- but 70 of us had to sit through it

[Artichoke]

Munthari, I'm not good at numbers but on "turgid meander" moments like these an unexpected interjection of "The time for talking is over. Now call it extreme if you like, but I propose we hit it hard, and we hit it fast, with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign. " - can create a livening diversion, that Red Dwarf Rimmer fans will enjoy.

The technology of school seems to works best when stopping things happening. Cj’s points about change, use of acronyms, and our continual fretting over the "adoption of ICT" are all relevant here.

We have whole institutions and hierarchies built upon limiting the power to make change, and the introduction of costly delaying processes like the one you describe to ensure nothing significant ever happens. “Yes Minister” spoofed the Civil Service in a way that reminded me so much of education - The system has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce."

You will recognize your meeting as being in the early stages of the following "Yes Minister" scripted process. I'm not much on the "tea leaves" but I predict there will be more meetings about those fridge magnets.

"Any unwelcome initiative from a minister can be delayed until after the next election by the Civil Service 12-stage delaying process:
1. Informal discussions
2. Draft proposal
3. Preliminary study
4. Discussion document
5. In-depth study
6. Revised proposal
7. Policy statement
8. Strategy proposal
9. Discussion of strategy
10. Implementation plan circulated
11. Revised implementation plans
12. Cabinet agreement"

When working within, I found the trick to edu_survival was to adopt a religious like fervour for fridge magnet design or a major leaflet campaign. Then you can be excused the big picture meetings to work on the important aesthetical design issues with a small cell of like minded irreverent, deeply cynical, and shameless survivalists.

[cj]

Yo botts,
Many industries which includes, dare I say it, tertiary high schools, aka universities, work as you describe, top down etc. But the industries I think are most interesting are those that don't. The work of Ricardo Semler comes to mind. More recently John Seely Brown (has an interesting podcast re this) has done a bunch of work in this space. I made a note about him on the kps blog.

[Artichoke]

Cj, how did you find out that I have always aspired to finding the plot, or at the very least never letting go of the one I found in the intermission?

I have found over a loooong period that if folk start talking to you in terms of ICTs or whatever acronym you prefer then basically they have either lost the plot or never had it. cj comment

I still remember my first feminist teachers meeting - it was when I first remember a collision with the acronym. I was struck mute, made suddenly agape by the reckless use and misuse of educational acronym by those whose early fluency would be rewarded with significant political positions in 25 years time.

I was so terrified that my acronym induced bewilderment and incomprehension would be revealed, that I would be cast out for pretending to acronym alertness whilst suffering from acronym blindness, that I feigned comprehension, and asked no questions. Quite unusual behaviour for me. Have felt vunerable ever since when I find myself immersed in games of edu_acronym.

Whole acronym thing makes me intellectually anxious.Is why unpacking simple notions like learning, school and change captures my thinking

[munthari]

Thanks Artichoke.
And you wonder why kids aren't coming to school.
The coffee-in-the-staffroom-and talking-to-your-workmates mode of cultural change is straight from SEMCO.

[cj]

Yeah - Riccardo S - is one cool guy. I always wondered what schools would be like if he ran them. Yes I know some schools do try and run a bit that way.

Re acronyms.... it's all a game - the trick is to invent them, toss em out there, and watch to see how many folk will nod, smile and not have a clue that you are bluffing. Mind you they won't amount to anything unless they get adopted but I think the real fun is in using acronyms that don't conform, e.g. you could talk about DUTs (dangerous ursine technologies). Does not exactly roll off the tongue.

[botts]

cj says:
it's all a game - the trick is to invent them, toss em out there, and watch to see how many folk will nod, smile and not have a clue that you are bluffing

we used to talk about playing a game called bullsh*t bingo. write down a bunch of edu_speak words and acronyms in random order head off to the obligatory staff meeting and first to make a line jumps up and shouts "bullsh*t". thought it was all an awesomely funny idea but a joke all the same until we hit the middle of a particularly boring meeting and the girl sitting next to me suddenly jumps up and screams "bullsh*t" at the top of her lungs. needless to say the meeting dissolved in fits of laughter. funniest of all tho' was the fact that the guy speaking just had no idea what was going on....

botts

[TG]

"Top down effect"..."bang for bucks" sounds like the tail wagging the dog. A close study in at least one successful school might indicate enthusiastic and inspirational leadership–proactive in the driving force of implementing successful learning across the school. This would also include administration and management of systems to aid successful implementation.

Some studies would also indicate, “Teacher quality is the factor that matters most for student learning”. (Darling-Hammond and Berry as cited in Rodriguez, 2000, p.1). A research study by Ryba and Brown (2000), revealed that teacher’s own beliefs are central to the use of ICT. “The study reveals that IT is a highly subjective experience and teachers’ beliefs have central place in shaping the nature of computer use”.

So you may never find one school where “learning through ICT” is school wide practice. I doubt we would find excellent practitioners of P.E either. There will always been pockets of excellence and a bell curve to reflect effective teaching.

The bigger picture lies in understanding the nature of the adult learner in the realm of ICT PD. Whether you labeled it as "early adapters" or "Digital Imigrants", there still needs to be an understanding that if core values and beliefs are not challenged, there will be little change in teacher practice. This is far bigger than addressing the issue of ICT integration. As the studies in Singapore show, there are isolated examples of best practice. This would be true to other forms of PD as well. I am sure the Numeracy and Literacy projects have their own similar findings.

It would therefore be more beneficial to conduct your own action research processes within a school to create a case study on one or several successful teachers to try and assertain behaviours and chractersitics that contribute to effective practice in this field. It may look like the following...
Attributes such as:
• Passion and energy
• Core beliefs about quality teaching and learning
• Understanding the nature of learning (bigger picture) and how ICT supports this
• Ability to be reflective of current educational theories and able to put into teaching practice
• Confidence to play and up-skill with ICT tools personally
• Knowledge of software potential in a number of applications
• Ability to utilise existing examples of ICT and alter to show originality
• Ability to teach confidently with clear idea of deeper features
• Understanding the process of creativity
• Able to identify and define visual quality and surface features
• Ability to transfer this onto the children

Did these teachers gain these attribtues through PD? Or might they have brought that to the process before they started?

The amount of money spent on ICT PD projects is a relevant one. However, wihtout a focus in this area, none of these issues would have come to the fore as they have in NZ. Nearly 50% of schools are starting to hear the same messages (could be a conspiracy), engage in professional dialogue (beyond the behaviour of their students) and tools that are deemed obvious to the economic realm are considered a novelty in education. Just look at the power of these blogs and the context discussed...now that has got to be something to cheer about?