All this talk about standardisation and exams somehow led me to this cool presentation by Lee Bryant from Headshift, and his ideas about the implications of the knowledge economy have parallels with the shifts and tensions in education.

He writes that “one of the most exciting aspects of our time is the extent to which new freedoms and behaviours are emerging from the interplay between social technologies and the new forms of networks, communities and individual relationships they are making possible” and that “young people entering the workplace are less likely to tolerate working as battery chickens in their cubicles who are fed by email and expected to excrete reports.”

Worth a read, check out the full post here.

PLC Sydney’s move to trial the use of the internet and ipods in exams has sparked lots of discussion.

Chris Betcher, who works at PLC, presents the reasoning behind the move in his post, The Truth is Out There. He argues that schools need to prepare students to solve problems, not “know answers”.

“It ought to be obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense that the model of school we all know so well - the model in which students come to school as essentially empty vessels waiting to be filled by the teacher - is hopelessly flawed and outdated in this day and age.

John Connell is strident in his support for PLC, and writes that:

“If you want to understand the effects of the ludicrous examination systems we have been smothered by for so long, just read the comments here from all of those who believe that education should be about filling young people’s heads with ‘knowledge’ and that examinations are therefore surely about testing how much of that ‘knowledge’ a child can retain in his or her head and then vomit onto a piece of paper on command - with a pencil (a pencil !) - all within a very short space of time - and with no recourse at all to the wonderful and abundant sources of information available to us all today.”

Related post: Aaarrgghh- it’s the test

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahmedrabea/246570462/

Yep, despite talking the talk, high-stakes testing predominates.

It’s a depressing realisation that at the end of the day, this mode of assessment limits (even negates) student engagement with literature, film, philosophy and ethics that is at the heart of this course, which in many ways is one of the most progressive of English curricula.

Xmac, from Singapore, who also attended iCTLT, had similar thoughts, in his post “No Context, No Comprende”:

“So, we want our cake and eat it too. We all agree that assessment is an essential component of the learning process. It shows the progress of the learner, the accuracy of the learning, the suitability of the pace of instruction, and lots of other important data for tracking the learning process. And yet, because we are introducing diversity, applying multiple-intelligences to bear on our students’ learning, and encouraging them to take ownership and responsibility over their own learning process, when it comes to taking standardized tests it seems like allowing everyone to run free for a while and then suddenly yanking on their leashes and bringing them all back to the kennel we told them they were being released from. In this model, their learning is still about the test, whatever our intentions were.”

This is why I was heartened to read this story, Phone a Friend in Exams, in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

Students will be able to use iPods, the Internet and mobile phones during exams under a trial program at PLC Sydney.

Presbyterian Ladies’ College at Croydon in Sydney is redefining the “open book” exam concept, in which students are able to bring in reference books, to take into account new technology. The school is trialling the use of the new media with 14 and 15-year-old (Year 9) English students but hopes to expand its use across all subjects by year-end.

English teacher Deirdre Coleman said students were being encouraged to access information using their mobile phones, the Internet and from podcasts on their MP3 players during exams and believes the project has the potential to change the way the Higher School Certificate examinations are run.

But any time a source is used, it must be cited on the test paper to prevent plagiarism, she said.

“In terms of preparing them for the world, we need to redefine our attitudes towards traditional ideas of ‘cheating’, unless the students have a conceptual understanding of the topic or what they are working on, they can’t access bits and pieces of information to support them in a task effectively,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Coleman, as saying.

We presented a paper at the iCTLT 08 Conference in Singapore this month on authentic assessment and web 2 tools. The presentation went really well and it was great to talk about the exciting and challenging aspects of experimenting with new forms of learning and assessment with teachers from Singapore and other places. Martin Levins, Seonia Wark, Jacqui Whitland and I presented an overview of how learning in the primary, middle and senior schools is changing as a consequence of teaching in a 1:1 laptop and wireless environment. One of the best things about the presentation, IMO, was that it provided examples of “ordinary” teachers who are using constructivist ideas and web 2 technologies to engage students and provide multidisciplinary, real world, experiential and relevant learning experiences in maths, science, industrial design, English, history and geography - warts and all.

Samples are on Seonia’s site here and the quicktime version of presentation heard/viewed/downloaded here.

[In] Authentic Assessment, assessment drives the curriculum. That is, teachers first determine the tasks that students will perform to demonstrate their mastery, and then a curriculum is developed that will enable students to perform those tasks well, which would include the acquisition of essential knowledge and skills. (Jonathan Meuller)

Authentic assessment centres on “…engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field.” — Grant Wiggins — (Wiggins, 1993, p. 229).

iCTLT was the first conference held by the International Society for Technology in Education outside the US, and it was a fantastic opportunity to hear from leaders in the field of education about the role of technology in learning. One of the best things about this conference was that it was focused on making genuine shifts in learning and pedagogy rather than IT tools. The key theme of the conference was the significance of creativity in learning and it was cool to hear Sir Ken Robinson (of TED Talks “Do Schools Kill Creativity” fame) in person. In his keynote, Ken Robinson challenged the very nature of schools, which are geared towards producing 20th-century, industrial workers, rather than creative thinkers who will thrive in a 21st-century globalised, knowledge-rich world. He made many thought-provoking statements including that schools squash students’ potential rather than fostering it. He spoke about how the arts are devalued in education and that we need a radical transformation (rather than incremental, comfortable tinkering at the edges) away from the utility, linearity, conformity, standardization that is the hallmark of most education systems to a educational model that is based on vitality, creativity, diversity and customisation.

From Edutopia

This TED Talks by Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, demonstrates visually the warped world view presented by US network television, where Anna Nicole Smith and Britney dwarf all international news except Iraq.

The map above represents the seconds dedicated to news stories by country in February 2007, a month when North Korea announced plans to dismantle its nuclear facilities, there was massive flooding in Indonesia and in Paris the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced its study on the impact of human behaviour on global warming. She attributes this absence of international focus to the lack of foreign bureaus, which have been reduced by half. There are no network news bureaus in India, Africa or South America - home to 2 billion people.

“The reality is that covering Britney is cheaper”.

It would be interesting to conduct a survey that explores that numbers of journalists working at networks and newspapers generally. Anecdoctally, there are less journalists who have to produce more stories but we all know that quantity does not mean quality. It takes time and money to produce quality journalism, especially investigative pieces and while, like teachers, most journalists are not there to make lots of money the declining real wages of journalists impacts of the quality of the news that we receive. It is ironic that in this information age, most online, print and television news is recycled from the wire or worse, press releases.

All I can say is “thank god for the ABC“. Australia’s publicly-funded, advertising-free broadcaster has a loyal and sizeable following and takes seriously its mission to inform the nation. Most of my international news comes from the ABC, which unlike commercial, profit-driven networks, maintains a genuine commitment to investigative reporting, accountability and knows the difference between what’s in the public interest and what the public are interested in.

It’s interesting how language reflects our sense of cultural identity and this is evident in the Scottish Voice project, which makes a high-quality, synthetic Scottish voice available free to Scottish schools. The project website states that: “We believe there is a strong cultural and educational imperative for pupils in Scotland to be able to read and listen to Scottish curriculum resources spoke using a Scottish synthetic voice.”

Accents and idiomatic expressions have a powerful appeal and no less so than in Australia, which has its own particular linguistic “flavour”.

I wonder if this would fly in Australia - flattened vowels, anyone?

The Australian vernacular, sometimes perjoratively called “strine” (think Steve Irwin and you’ve got it), is often seen as something that needs to be sanitised and is believed to reflect a lack of cultivation (a hangover of the infamous cultural cringe that has long plagued Antipodeans). According to Wikipedia, “most linguists consider there to be three main varieties of Australian English: Broad, General and Cultivated Australian English. They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They often, but not always, reflect the social class or educational background of the speaker.” Interestingly, it says that “cultivated Australian English is now spoken by less than 10% of the population”.

Perhaps this is because Australia is becoming increasingly diverse and is reported to be:

• The second largest Irish, Maori and Maltese country.
• The third largest English country.
• The fourth largest Scottish country.
• The fifth largest Greek, Vietnamese and Dutch country.
• The seventh largest German country.
• The ninth largest Italian country.
• The eleventh largest Serbian country.
• The fifteenth largest Han Chinese country.
• The sixteenth Turkish country.
• The seventeenth largest Indian country

What do ya reckon?