Learning with the Fang

Im here as a guest of education.au to blog, tweet, qik.com, podcast, flickr and whatever I can from the Adelaide round of the national Digital Education Revolution symposium.

Flickr Photos:
Qik.com Video:
Tweets:
Yahoo Pipe: (*thanks to @dnwallace)

Very rough live notes, will publish at each break!

Gerry White kicked things off with a rousing call to action – Collaborate!

Sheila Witherston (sp?) Branch manager of the Digital Education Revolution task force in Canberra – some information on policy & process underpinning the Federal Government’s spend.

Mark Pesce takes to the stage for his Keynote.
- acceleration (those Whacky Kids don’t feel it)
- constructivist ‘disclaimer’
- CoPresence (last text message ‘crap I’m out of credit, sense the force and move over to myspace where the flow of conversation continues. Not new. Reminds me of a telegram on the old Queen Mary ship from ye olde days) From Cronulla riots to Nature comparison Wikipedia / Britannica
- SCHOOL (thoroughly disconnected – more like torture chamber than place of learning) The implicit curriculum forced by industrialisation. Exactly wrong.
So, what do we do?
- Drop computers on desks. Need more than math drill and spelling exercises.
- @mpesce has a better idea: well worth a look listen on the video or podcast
- Twitter
Call to action: we (the agents of change) need to Collaborate
- What needs to change in the explicit curriculum? (if giving kids a laptop is the moral equivalent of giving them a loaded gun, and you can’t learn calculus while multitasking).

p.s. Ask me what we had to do to get internet connectivity. I’m gunna tell you anyway because it was crazy! – I know the organizers specified internet connectivity at the venue. What we got was a 10T hub located at the rear of the stage in the keynote room. There were two VERY LONG cables stretching from there to the podcast desk and on table at the FRONT of the room. Guess where I had to sit!! Lucky Kerry from Education.au bought her own (even longer) cable – now that is what I call being prepared. Doc searls wrote something interesting about his today, his point being that paying for wifi in a hotel will be like paying to use the toilet – you don’t.

Morning Tea:
Some great conversations including bumping into my year 10 physics teacher who taught me to play guitar! Also had a great chat with the principal from my kid’s school – watch out for an innovative wireless school proof of concept.

Morning Breakout sessions:
a.c.e.r. Upstairs in level 6, no connectivity unfortunately. Moved downstairs to catch the last half of Garry Putland from education.au. First phrase I caught was ‘Communication is the C in iCt’. Will point to posts from the other bloggers in the room when I find them.
- wikipedia, gapminder, google earth and worldwide telescope.
- careers, myfuture , lifelong learning
- Intellectual property in the age of the Read/Write web

Afternoon Breakout:

* Also covered by Kerry’s excellent ‘coveritlive’ blog post.

- Michael Cowling, Aberfoyle Park ‘Sharing ICT best practice’
- Alices poems, recorded at school as podcast ‘flick to phone’ (via bluetooth). Engagement when kids knew they could send something to THEIR phones.
- Chinese language podcast, deliberately slow to learn tones
- Boxing comic (exactly 150 words!), Flash animation VERY engaged learner (if not politically correct).
- Aberfoyle CSI, home made movie, published to PHONES (again), incomplete work in progress very useful for next year’s group
- Videocast visitors, enhanced learning (especially for the federal minister learning how to receive bluetooth)
- Teacher T&D

Need to rush off to another function – suggest you tune into Kerrys coveritlive!

Fang – Mike Seyfang