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On the Power of Networks

I was doing some stuff on Voicethread this morning and spotted a Twitter from Alec Couros directing me to a very powerful use of Voicethread. Alec is a professor at the University of Saskatoon in Regina, Canada, and posed the question “What does your Network mean to you?” as a Voicethread and got a large number of responses from a wide range of educators. It’s very interesting to scan through the responses and see what a wide range of ideas can be held within a single Voicethread.

Take a look for yourself…

[kml_flashembed movie="http://voicethread.com/book.swf?b=67978" width="600" height="450" wmode="transparent" /]

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Calling all IWB users

I don’t normally make requests like this but if you are reading this and you teach using any sort of Interactive Whiteboard, I have a small favour to ask…

I am currently in the middle of writing a book about the use of IWBs in schools. I’m actually co-authoring it with Mal Lee, an ex-principal and one of the most knowledgeable guys around when it comes to interactive whiteboard research. Mal and I are trying to finish the book over the next few weeks (we have an actual book contract with the Australian Council for Educational Research… with a real deadline and everything!) It aims to be an overview guide looking at the appropriate pedagogy and logistical considerations to think about when you become an IWB user. We are trying to keep the book as brand-agnostic as possible, even though we are aware that the majority of readers will be on either a SmartBoard or an Activboard. The real focus is on pedagogy, logistics and other practical classroom considerations.

Here’s where you come in…

I would really love to include some highlights in the book with short examples from teachers all over the world about how they work with their IWBs. Mini case studies if you will. They don’t have to be long and involved, but if you teach regularly with an IWB I would love to hear from you with respect to the following questions. Don’t feel you have to answer all of them… in fact they are really just prompters to get you thinking. I’d be happy for you to write about any aspect of teaching with an IWB that you feel is relevant or important to you.

  • In what ways has an IWB affected your classroom and how you teach?
  • What do you see as the three biggest advantages of teaching with an IWB?
  • What advice would you offer to teachers just starting out with an IWB?
  • Describe the process you use when you develop teaching resources for your IWB.
  • How do your students respond to the IWB?
  • What is the most innovative thing you’ve ever seen done on an IWB?

Remember these are just starting points. Anything you want to write is fine. No more than 500 words please.

Since you know I’m planning to include these in the book, I will assume that if you write something then you give me permission to include your response in the book. If there are any special conditions you’d like to ask for, please let me know. I’m not in a position to pay you anything, but naturally I will give you full credit for your contribution. If you do want to write something, I’d need it within the next week.

If you’d like to help out, please send me your contributions to [email protected], or just add it as a comment at the end of this post if you’d prefer.

Many thanks.

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The Marist Way

Fellow blogger Judy O’Connell (from the HeyJude blog) recently started working at a large Marist school in Sydney, and she was kind enough to share some insights about her new school on her blog recently. St Josephs Hunters Hill is not just “a Marist school”, but is really THE Marist school. It is the flagship school for the brothers here in Sydney and has quite the reputation for providing a quality educational experience. For anyone who may not know, Marist schools were founded by Marcellin Champagnat in the early 1800s, a Frenchman who saw a specific need for boys’ education and proceeded to set up schools to meet that need.

I read Judy’s post with interest as I attended a Marist school as a kid. I also spent 8 years teaching in a Marist school. So as an ex-Marist boy I can personally vouch for both the strength and the gentleness of the Marist way of doing things. Because the Marists have a particular devotion to Jesus’s mother, Mary, there is a perceptible gentleness to the way they view education, with a certain respect for, and influence from, the feminine point of view.  It’s not a “girly” thing at all, but it seems to manifest in a respectful gentility that is usually considered softer than some other religious orders.  I do think “the Marist way” of education has a very special quality to it…

I once asked Brother Tony Butler, a Marist brother and good friend, what exactly was “the Marist way”, and how he felt it differed from the educational approach taken by other orders of brothers, such as the Christian Brothers or the De La salle Brothers… Tony explained it like this…

“Most teaching orders tend to think of the relationship between a teacher and the student as one of Master and Apprentice, in that the teacher is the “master”, full of special knowledge that is passed along to the “apprentice” learner, a sort of empty vessel waiting to be filled.

The Marist approach is subtly different, and instead treats that relationship as not one of Master/Apprentice, but of Big Brother/Little Brother.”

Big Brother/Little Brother. I like that way of thinking about the student/teacher relationship. Thinking about the relationship between the teacher and student in those terms implies that there is far more than just knowledge transfer taking place in the classroom… there is also trust, respect, wisdom, care and love.

Not a bad recipe for a learning environment.