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The
NIS (Network of Innovative Schools) Conference was held in Mississauga, Each
participating new school had to come with prepared material to present on a
poster\backboard. This material was
to represent the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) activities that
were either going on in the school, and/or had helped the school to receive the
NIS Grant. All these materials were
organized by Leslie Gentes before the conference, so it is thanks to her, even
though she fell ill and could not attend the conference, that we were well
prepared. For
those four days we had the opportunity to network with colleagues from schools
across Canada who had also qualified for the NIS Grant and were therefore
participating in the conference. We
also had the opportunity to learn about and share new and innovative practices
in the area of ICT. A
large number of provincial and territorial representatives from the GrassRoots
National Working Group as well as several administrators from Jordan, the
European Network of Innovative School (ENIS), and the European SchoolNet were in
attendance. A delegation of
Canadian Researchers was also present for the purpose of advising on the
implementation of various ICT-related projects and opportunities. There
was a Resource Room in the facility set up like an Internet cafe.
It was meant to be a networking place for delegates to come and chat and
share ideas. There were 30 iBooks courtesy of Apple Canada with high speed
Internet access. These were used
for a variety of workshops and were also available on a flexible basis for
delegates to use for e-mail. Print material arising from several of the sessions was also
available at this location. The
weekend held a full and stimulating schedule, with a great mix of information
and networking time. After
registration, an official welcome session took place where each new school was
recognized. Fatima provided a brief
description of the Sargent Park project. Richard
Worzel, an expert forecaster and the President of Futuresearch Corporation, an
influential company that provides specialized consulting services in business
trends, was the opening keynote speaker on Friday afternoon.
The theme of his speech was that even though education is undergoing
greater changes in more areas that at any time in the last century, the
education system is preparing neither teachers nor students for these changes,
nor for the world of the future. The
first evening started with a 'Poker Mixer' which involved only delegates from
the schools new to NIS. Participating
in an 'ice-breaker' activity, we matched up with a delegate from another new
school, and this determined our dinner seating. After dinner we participated in some activities which were
meant to be both entertaining and fun as well as help us mix and mingle. Saturday
morning began with the poster set-up for the new schools and then after
breakfast, Dr. William Daggert, President of the International Centre for
Leadership in Education, was the keynote speaker. His topic was "The 21st Century Classroom - Beyond
Standards and Testing". Mr.
Daggert is recognized worldwide for his efforts to move educational systems
towards more rigorous and relevant skills and knowledge for all students. He
spoke about what the classroom of the future will be like and the fact that
there will be a greater discrepancy between the 'have' and 'have-not' schools as
far as ICT is concerned. In his
opinion, many classrooms will be driven by what skills their graduates will need
to function in the business world that they will enter.
Daggert insists that we need to change how and what skills we teach,
because business is pushing for reforms and higher standards, and they want
employees skilled in technical reading and writing. He agreed that it will be difficult for schools to
change because, most importantly, it will be very expensive. Daggert also stressed that reading across the curriculum is
very important and showed us statistics of the amount of reading that was
necessary in a variety of jobs. He
also spoke about how the Internet, distance learning, and all types of computer
applications will be the basis of learning, as will hand-held devices that will
record lectures. In the future
these devices will have telephone and video capabilities which will replace the
need for the student to attend class to receive material.
The 'Web' will become a semantic web where one will use concepts to
search, and the new language will be 'xml' (extensible mark up language) a
single language for the whole world.
An RDF or Resource
Development Framework will include huge relational databases to compare all
kinds of data. Daggert's
opinion is that in the future, students will be actively engaged in the learning
process and their teachers will just be managers.
In all this new ICT he stated that the bottom 1\3 of educators (meaning
low in their use and knowledge of technology) will follow the top 1\3, if they
lead. I found this to be extremely
meaningful in the situation in our own school where teachers who have little
knowledge of ICT are very willingly participating in professional development as
those on our staff who have the knowledge lead the way.
His final thought was that changing methodology, new technology, and
varied staffing patterns will permit schools to make learning mandatory and time
the variable. The
second morning session was a series of parallel workshops where each
delegate could choose according to their interest.
Donna went to 'Savvy Surfing', which was a presentation given by Ann
Taylor from the Media Awareness Network.
Ann spoke about preparing students to surf the web safely, to protect
their personal privacy, to understand on-line marketing, and to distinguish
between fact and opinion on the Internet.
Of particular interest was the fact that the research shows that many
parents feel that they adequately supervise their children on the net. When their children were asked the same question, the
children in fact felt that their parents were not very aware of all the sites
that they were entering and all the exposure they had to chat rooms, etc.
This tended to reinforce the fact that parents need to be educated on the
pitfalls of the Internet. Research
shows that 25% of all students on-line in chat rooms have been asked to
personally meet their on-line contact. 38%
of student searches end up in pornographic sites by accident or else by the
creative way in which web operators name their sites.
Web sites are virtual playgrounds for advertising and the purpose for
these sites is to get kids to want to buy on-line.
Ann also warned about entering contests on-line - it is very important to
read the fine print to see exactly what will be sent to you as a result.
This session also dealt with some of the practical teaching resources
that can be found on Mnet's new web awareness site.
They have a web awareness program for teachers, parents and students
called "Joe Cool' or "Joe Fool", which deals with safety on-line.
After
lunch on Saturday we were fortunate to hear from Dr. Michael Fullan
speaking on "Leading in a Culture of Change". Fullan is the
Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of
Toronto. An innovator and leader in education, Michael Fullan has developed a
number of partnerships designed to bring about major school funding and
improvement and educational reform and has published widely on the topic of
educational change. His main
message was that technology should be an accelerator of the teaching process,
and that managing change is one of the most challenging issues facing schools
everywhere. He spoke about
understanding the change process, building professional communities at the
school level, focusing on the role of the district and identifying the
leadership needs for successful reform. The
second half of the afternoon was spent informally in the Poster Session where
all delegates were able to browse through the first year school's displays and
ask questions about their projects. There
were many opportunities for networking and organizing future collaborative
projects with other cutting edge schools.
Sargent Park delegates took turns standing by our display which consisted
of a backboard and two lap tops, one containing a Power Point presentation
promoting the programs in our school and the other, a copy of our school web
page for visitors to browse. Saturday
evening was unstructured and delegates had pre-registered for
activities which included shopping and wandering downtown, a trip to
Niagara Falls, theatres, and a Maple Leafs hockey game to name just a few.
Sunday began with two optional sessions in the morning and more poster
displays. A networking brunch began
at 10:30 followed by a series of parallel workshops. Donna went to the
presentation on plagiarism presented by Caroline McCullen from SAS in School.
Caroline is also a member of the US Department of Education's 18 member
Educational Technology Expert Panel. She
presented a number of strategies and some free Web resources that could be used
in any classroom. Strategies
towards eliminating the tempting 'copy and paste' method of student writing were
examined, as were methods of verifying the originality of student work.
Since this is a topic which is a concern of many educators and
administrators in Winnipeg School Division, it was very relevant information.
Beginning
at 1:00 p.m. roundtable and small group discussions were held on a wide variety
of relevant topics. Donna attended
a small group discussion about grassroots projects led by Bruce Lane from Mary
Queen of Peace School in Newfoundland. Bruce
shared his school's history of participating in Grassroots and how the projects
were integrated into the curriculum. There
was then a sharing session by all schools in attendance.
During
the second rotation of these themes, Donna attended a lively discussion group
called 'The Innovative School
Library' where teacher librarians and other interested teachers shared successes
and frustrations in their attempts to create the school library as a centre for
educational technology advancement. An
extension of this discussion group was a teleconference in mid November between
all participants. During this
teleconference we again shared ideas and did some more networking.
I was able to share a program, which I do with my S1 students with
another teacher librarian, and was able to make some connections in other
provinces as far as collaborating on Grassroots projects for the future. Another
poster session was held in the late afternoon; this time the schools who had
been with NIS for more than one year controlled the display. Sunday evening was
the official Awards Reception and dinner where Sargent Park received a very
elegant crystal 'Apple' plaque to celebrate our membership in the NIS Program.
Official photos were taken of representatives of all the first year
schools.
Monday, after continental breakfast Donna had to leave to catch her flight and
Fatima and Ruth remained for the remainder of the day. Respectfully
submitted, |
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2008 -- © Sargent Park School 2008
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