[Year 12 IT Apps] epotential feedback and comment

[Kent Beveridge]

I saw this elearning scaffold a short number of years back at a former(state system) school. The initial impression I got was that the principal of that venue was 'strongly encouraging' (take what you might from that) all staff to go down this path as the 'decision had been taken' to persue this strategy. Needless to say, the school was crowing about it being one of the first to go this path.
My personal thoughts when this announcement was made was that many staff thought the old 'here we go again' routine of gov't forcing change on its state school system (and its employees)- like many of its well intentioned but hard to implement strategies.

Issues seen at the time(and now?) included:
Costs of PD
Training, as opposed to PD, meaning new qualifications required?
Time for attending these PD sessions
Value to learning
Attitudes of staff to the strategies
Actual improvement to skillsets of staff
Terminology (new) to be learned and implemented
Strategies to implement the 4 stages within schools
Alienation, and castigation, of staff who dont participate actively(with threats of formal or informal actions from hierarchy-they were subtle, but nevertheless apparent)
Who on staff, actually, realistically and practically, has the skillsets required to implement these strategies...
Job advancement and career opportunities opening for those who acquire these levels? Or closing for those who dont! (tell me staff dont think about THIS ONE).
etc.

I still can clearly remember when and exactly which room it was made, this strategy was initiated to the staff on mass in a meeting held specifically for the purpose of telling them.

My comment?
Whilst I did look through the necessary levels as I perceived they applied to myself, I found it difficult to know if I had the skillset or even the time to acquire the skillset,  required to achieve these 4 levels.
The first 3 I strongly feel are what every teacher endeavours to offer their pupils, themselves and the employers. The 4th(transformative) I feel is, well, above many staff to achieve no matter how hard they try!  To transform is to change..that is often difficult to encourage students to do and many teachers try doing this in their own way depending on their environments anyway.
Me? I actively attempt to do the first 3 and will freely admit to a degree of difficulty of the 4th!
Every year I teach, I try new stuff...yes EVERY year!  I dont try to transform myself, or 'morf', and I dont try for miracles..I just try to get the message across in a way that hopefully my audience(the students/learners) can relate to or make sense of.

A weakness of the 4 steps as I see them but is not discussed is that of how adults(staff and teachers) relate to each other. To get this 4 step strategy to work, I believe, you also need 100% support of ALL your colleagues and in any workplace that is going to be difficult to achieve for many different conscious/unconscious and cognitive reasons.

So, in summary?
Get yourself a Principal whom everyone supports, go grab a staff of Phd and Masters trained people, add a dash of strong industry links, throw in a bucket of money, find some land to build this fantastic school environment and then try to see if everyone gets along and thinks alike. THEN, add students and watch the whole plan evaporate!
WHY? Because we dont live in an ideal world and politicians like 'spin' and 'strategies' ('myschools website' and its statistical flaws etc).

I am happy to give things a go, but as those who know me know, I am also a realist(some say pessimist). If I am so against all this, then before you have a go at me, consider this..I went back to part time study recently and gained 2 further qualifications in 3 years. If thats not trying to transform myself and my learning strategies...what is?  Oh, BTW, I am part way through another qualification too right now! If thats not proactive then go fish!

Ok, thats my take on the 4 steps. They sound fantastic, in theory, but practically? I'm not convinced they can be implemented in EVERY school. Some perhaps? But not all.
Maybe in my next life I'll come back as a politician...hehehe.

Next comments????

Kent Beveridge.
ICT Co-ordinator
St.Brigids Catholic SC., Horsham.
________________________________
From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au [itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au] on behalf of Kevork Krozian [kevork at edulists.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 5 April 2010 1:53 PM
To: elearning Teachers' Mailing List; Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: [Year 12 IT Apps] epotential feedback, opinion and ideas

Hi Folks,

 This is going to both elearning and itapps lists as many itapps teachers would in all likelihood have an involvement with elearning in their schools.

 You would all be aware of DEECD's efforts in scaffolding student, teacher and school elearning and structuring ICT leadership etc.
The site showing the continuum, relevant documents and samples of work can be accessed at http://epotential.education.vic.gov.au/continuum.php.

In fact there are parallel continuums or continua in many/most jurisdictions. A statement recognising "partnerships" at least, is posted on the Victorian site:
in partnership with:
Department of Education, Employment & Training, Northern Territory
Department of Education & Children Services, South Australia
I am told that the epotential continuum started life in the Northern Territory and worked its way down and across to Vic where it was rebadged.

A colleague has also alerted me to a Florida equivalent " Technology integration matrix"  http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/index.html . This is worth a look.

Check out the comparison of levels between a few of these jurisdictions:
Jurisdiction

Levels of elearning integration

Victoria

Foundation , Emergent, Innovative, transformative

South Australia

Develop, Apply, Deliver, Transform

Florida ( USA)

Entry , Adoption, Adaptation, Infusion, Transformation


Here are some of the issues;

1. I am told Independent and Catholic schools as a system ( for various reasons )  don't use the epotential continuum by choice. If roughly a third of Victorian schools ( is that about the proportion ? )  don't use this tool what does it say about standards across the state or agreement about what anything means ?
2. Speaking over the water cooler with state school counterparts I hear a number of state schools don't use the epotential continuum for various reasons such as:
               a) the continuum does not relate to what happens in their schools
               b) the continuum and the samples of work on the epotential site do not adequately address secondary levels of ICT use or worse almost totally have an absence of any VCE application.
               c) Noone has seen what the transformative level looks like. Therefore, how can one know if it has been achieved ?
               d) A lack of agreement between some samples of work and where it fits in a continuum.
               e) Concerns regarding just what embedding elearning means. Complaints that simply digitization of information is seen as elearning by some without the connections with higher order critical thinking, analysis, hypothesis testing and more. Is the technology being used to improve learning, application or just occupy the students eg. Does animating a character add anything different to a student's understanding or just give them a visual or audio representation of what is already on paper ? Does drawing a mind map diagram of what is already in written form add anything to their understanding or knowledge ?

In view of some of these issues I was wondering if
1. Could  I get some feedback on whether any schools are using the epotential continuum as the scaffold upon which to build embedding of the elearning in the curriculum ? If schools have chosen to not go with the epotential continuum can I please ask their reasons ?

2. What other appraches are schools taking to the challenge of embedding elearning in the curriculum and how is this being delivered, measured and verified ?

With thanks



Kevork Krozian
kevork at edulists.com.au<mailto:kevork at edulists.com.au>
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