next-ed

I had the great pleasure of attending the second annual Coalition of Knowledge Building Schools conference, held at Taronga Zoo on the banks of Sydney Harbour last Friday.  The Coalition is a cooperative association of member schools and institutions from across New South Wales and across sectors of education.  At times it was difficult to concentrate as Cotton Top Tamarin monkeys played on the other side of the glass wall.

The small conference was energetic and the atmosphere was very open and trusting.  People from divergent fields, inlcuding zoo educators and museum curators shared their experiences with primary and secondary schools of vastly different cultures.  Two prevailing themes emerged from our discussions: 

1. That the ubiquity of technology takes it beyond being ‘just another tool’.  Its pervasiveness in the lives of our students, and its seamless integration into social organisation and cultural expression elevates technology to a status which has more in common with a cultural paradigm rather than merely a learning tool.  The implications of this are profound, starting with our moral and ethical obligation, as teachers, to study and understand how learning and knowing can be enhanced and mediated in a culturally powerful way.
2. One of the most authentic and effective ways of keeping learning fresh is to engage in action research as a practitioner.  By asking rich questions and endeavouring to answer them by listening to the voices of those we teach, we can come a long way down the path towards that elusive destination: best practice.

I want to leave you with a a short (4min) video summarising some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime