to be perfectly honest though, based on the research by Dr. Sugata Mitra and his “hole in the wall” project** I’d rather see the teaching of ethics (classical ethics not “right and wrong”) to teach critical thinking and leave the children to nut put the tools themselves.

I mean, we’re still talking about hammers and other tools here (ICT literacy)

More important (IMHO) they know how to communicate, how to interact with the world and it’s people around them

… and why

** some core info here:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.html

a really bad recording of a talk of his http://design-notes-deepankar.blogspot.com/2007/11/sugata-mitra-can-kids-teach-themselves.html

As an ex-teacher who still works in schools on a consulting capacity, I couldn’t agree more that we need a massive revolution in the way we approach education in schools. But the biggest stumbling block I see is our assessment systems. The problem in NSW is that as students approach the senior years everything is geared towards the final exams and university entrance scores. I taught secondary Maths. At this level you are starting to get close to the ‘interesting’ Maths and there are some great things you could do that would make the experience more collaborative and connected with excellent graphics programs and online experiences and investigations. But the problem I faced was that the syllabus was so crowded, it was a race just to try and help students understand the bulk of the course material – you couldn’t leave anything out, not just because it was in the syllabus but because students university entrances were being determined by these exams. There are so many things I would have loved to be able to try and do but was unable to – more due to time constraints than anything else. Our school had the facilities, I had the expertise, we just didn’t have the luxury of time. I can’t immediately see a solution to this problem – I guess the first step is recognition of the problem. But while we are in an educational system that is so exam-focused I can’t see major change being possible. I do wonder if we go to a national curriculum in Australia if things will change as not all other states have the big external exams that we have.

One last comment: I wholeheartedly agree we need to pay teachers well. After teaching on a great salary in HK and Singapore where teaching is a respected profession I was horrified to come back to the Australian pay scale. BUT. If you want an impressive salary, then you need to be accountable. Teaching is one of the few professions where you can close the door and pretty much do what you like an incompetents are shuffled from school to school. Some schools are already leading the way – one of the schools I taught in students (and parents) evaluated teacher performance every year, you had to set your goals and professional development for the year and Head teachers would sit in on your lessons at least once a year. And so it should be! And how about this for an idea, double teachers pay but give them only 4 weeks holiday a year like everyone else and have them teaching community courses or adult education in the school holidays…….

in 2004, while working for a private faith-based high school in Sydney, my eyes were well and truly opened by a whole school who “understood”. Where every single child was expected to have a laptop, pull lesson down from a (wifi) network share, create video blogs of excursions, forum posts, international video link-ups, television-quality assignments, etc. And they’d been doing this for a while and was just about to roll this out down to primary school level.

and yet last year the local large public high school in a comfortable middle-class area here in Brisbane finally introduced it’s ICE program that went somewhat towards this goal. Sadly, only enough infrastructure to off it to 2 classes of year 8 students, not all nine. and only a shadow of what I saw in 2004.

Principals, deputies, teachers et al in public schools would *all* love to improve the ICT literacy of students in line with the real world. But this is a luxury they can’t afford, both money AND time. They’re too busy keeping the roof up over kids heads, finding resources to obtain social workers for childen in risk or having behaviour problems, extra support for children with learning or other disabilities, teaching the basics, books, *_basic_computers_in classrooms_* , surviving yet more stupid and short-sighted ideas from State or Federal government “boffins”.

lets talk about equity. Lets talk about a quality education for ALL children, no matter what their social-economic status or city Vs country.

lets ensure ALL children thrive in the 21st century and ICT literacy doesn’t turn into yet another version of the haves and have-nots.

“Schools for the 21st century”
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/stories/2007/2000292.htm

** for the record, next week the wife is running the school fete to buy two more interactive whiteboards for her school … to replace the ones that have been stolen…

you are spot on saying there has been too much talk and not enough action, but there’s been a hell of a lot of boffins who have dived into this half-cocked without understanding the depth and breadth of this problem. the schools are littered with failed results of dead programs or dying inititives – students directly suffer when this happens. You want case studies/examples of this?

we have a federal education department and six state ones, Universities (training teachers) and TAFE’s (TAFE in schools programs) all looking (or have looked) at this issue. Sure they have their own problems of not singing from the same hymn book, reinventing the wheel or (in the case of reintroducing phonics in Queensland) going back to the future. Check this barney out:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/stories/2008/2306385.htm on how educated people still get it wrong.

and, compared to the hundreds of people researching and implementing education strategy and policy with multi-million dollar budgets and decades of experiance, are you *sure* you have an answer that will not only work in the safe comfortable middle-class sourounds of the ACT, but also Redfern, Inala, Mt Isa, Alice Springs, et al? Because *that’s* where reform needs to target – the battlers. the kids that _really_ do it tough.

I’ve said enough now and best of luck to you on this journey. If you treat it like any typical well run ICT project you’ll have a head start. Thorough requirements gathering, buy-in from stakeholders, contingency, implementation strategy. but most of all, listen to those that have tried and failed in the past. This whole thing is nothing new.

When I was at school, there were a few teachers that I had that stood out as the best, but they achieved that through different means. My Physics teacher was hugely devoted to his job, holding voluntary extra classes before school and throwing a lot of extra effort above and beyond the stardard required. Conversely my English teacher was very good at the way she interacted with students 1 on 1, encouraging each student to achieve their best in different ways.

Results, time, interaction, instruction are all aspects that go into being a good teacher. They can all be difficult to quantify.

Lack of career progression is another issue that I hadn’t thought of.

In terms of IT in schools, my Aunt is involved with ACT Education policy in relation to IT. I’ve spoken to her about the issues that schools have with licensing digital materials.

I know that most Dip. Ed programs these days are getting involved with teaching the prospective teachers about using social media internet tools, like wikis and blogs. Though from what I’ve seen it seems a bit haphazard.