ATI 2005 day 4

http://www.flickr.com/groups/ati2005 - photographs
http://tinyurl.com/6uhbv - ati evaluation


Richard Millwood keynote: presentation available @ http://improbability.ultralab.net/
Acting director Ultralab.

Potential - new capability augmented by tools. Growing global awareness in children & we should give them a chance to be moral leaders.
Society needs our children to be - Citizens, we want Peace, functional wealth - no pot of gold this can't be ignored. Culture.

From examinations we are rewarding - people who work alone, people who use memory but don't search, sit still & silent, only use paper and pens, forget.

Expression - what learners do
Evaluation - deciding if it's right.

Audience - thinking thoughts in response to listening watching or reading - does it make sense to me.
Presenter - speaking playing performing or doing - do other people understand me? Very important to do for extra feedback.
Writing, drawing, proving, planning or computing - feedback in a formal way.

Learning: to fulfill potential, to satisfy needs, together.
seeking for evaluation, persisting with different formulations until satisfied with feedback. Articulation of what you are trying to do is a learning process. Learning through explaining ideas to other people. Expression very important.

License to give children expressive, creative activities with group evaluation.

Learning with ICT:

inspire motivation - not just a better pencil. Culture of tools - civilization is founded on tools - live & breath tools. ICT in its widest forms is not just something on the side it is symbiotically linked to learning AND everything we do. It is functional!

enhance expressive creativity

empower evaluation

support perserverence

Tests for learning with ICT: expressive creativity + evaluative power

Dimensions in creative work:

Audience: articulating to others - self indulgent
Narrative: telling a story - effecting a reaction
Control: author determines - audience chooses

Last dimension newest. We are now a nation of channel hoppers - why? Because we have the tools to make choices. But at the other extreme we like the cinema. How do we design for the end of the spectrum where the audience make all the choices? That's the challenge.

Creative about...
strategy, creativity, vision, management,research,costs,conceptualization, collaboration, critique, development, evaluation, production, presentation.
What creativity means - lots of time and space.

Productivity v Creativity
Educational strategies...

QC - QA
teaching machines - learning tools
standardization - standards
interaction - participation
predictability - innovation
content - community
ivory tower research - practitioner research
piecemeal - joined-up
societal outcomes...
low value economy - high value economy
cultural conservation - cultural enrichment
dumbing down - smartening up

Why do we do creativity - not just for learning but for society.

Timescales: 10-20 years we are at the beginning of a revolution in education.

Challenges:

Unleash creativity...
...And collaboration

Rethink assessment - the biggest brake on change
trust the next generation...
...and teachers!


Discussion

Standards - need for open standards agreements to allow easier archiving and retention of work.

Tools - capability to become the heart of the education process. Is there any possibility that the politicians and society can embrace this? Need for this to be driven.

Assessment - deforming creativity. Models of learning matched in simplicity only bY models of assessment. Need to encourage and build on practicioner knowledge - critical mass could then allow practicioners to drive change.

Rethinking assessments is the challenge.


Mini ATI with David etc for all of SED advisors - link advisors etc.

My final note there of the keynote session reflects how I felt - that if we could just get some of our school advisors on one of these courses it could make such a difference. One of the big frustrations that we always have is that we have all this tachnology at our fingertips, but getting the message out to school leaders can be so hard - even something as technically simple as giving away some free software can be fraught with negativity - why? what does it do? whay would we need that? what if it doesn't work?

It seems that many of the educational thinkers in ICT are also thinkers in creativity and empowerment, though the challanges seem immense at the moment.