A Principal maximizes his Personal Learning Network for the benefit of his students

My friend and colleague in South Africa, Waldy Kastoor, had no idea that his call to me today powerfully riveted in my mind and heart the power and possibilities of connecting in meaningful learning spaces.

My recent interaction with the very insightful work by Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli revealed so vividly, the potential of what Waldy was doing in his class. Their book, Personal Learning Networks,  (a must read) and Waldy Kastoor’s innovative ideas for learning combine to provide validity for the case to modify what we do in today’s learning spaces if we are going to capture the hearts and minds of our young children.

1st World Problem – Torn between a Hobby and Psychology

A young Swede is getting big publicity for turning his lego-building hobby into a promising employment enterprise. After 12 years of basic schooling plus three years of Higher education, where he studied Psychology, he returned to a hobby that finds appeal in a market who is willing to spend thousands of Swedish crowns for  “exhibition of models”.

The article points out that the young Gabriel Bremler plans to return to studies soon and continue to drain hard-earned tax money – the prime source of Education funding in Sweden. He is still 2 years short of completing his studies.

Young people who are occupied with trivialities like building a 2m lego model of the Turning Torso  or a model of the new flexible concept in using office space represents, for me, a pathetic occupation with solving #FirstWorldProblems insensitively oblivious of real problems in the world.

Sure, the conscience is lulled by the delicately soothing assurance that an auction of the Turning Torso fetched about SEK 60 000 ($9000) in support of BRIS (Swedish Children’s Rights Organization) – as if an auction is needed to dig into your pocket and give to those who need help.

“Oroande Utveckling” as we call it in Sweden.

 

Game-based Learning…For Teachers

My 12-year old son thinks that Teachers could benefit from playing computer games. Although he does not think that any game will do, some fun for them would be quite in order. I asked him if he thought that teachers could actually be better teachers if they played more computer games. It was a tough one to ask someone who’s only been around for a dozen years, but he knew where the conversation was going.

Kids have fun, loads of fun when they play games, and, as he pointed out, they do learn quite a lot. Now the learning he refers to does not match, to a meaningfully comparable level, to the learning that is required to pass a History or Maths test. But, as the young dude pointed out, his vocabulary certainly expanded and this for him was indicative that some learning took place.

Game-based learning (GBL) is being explored more and more these days as pedagogues warn that schools and educational systems could find themselves irrelevant and boring if young children are not provided with the fun that is so easily accessible on their iPods and iPhones when they head home after school – or on the way to school in the morning.

I asked my boy if the problem-solving feature of computer-based games helps him in any way to solve the problems he sometimes experience when relating to his sister – the matter of speaking kindly, for example. Another stunner for the young lad, but he quickly highlighted the limited knowledge I have about the significance of the gap between reality and fantasy.

He came up with a brilliant idea, I thought, on what a game for teachers could look like that intended to provide both fun and sharpen pedagogy – although he did not put it that way. “Simulations” and “Role play” he said, could create scenarios along an important pedagogical skill, demanding of the teacher to make choices that either lead to losing a life, or getting a million bonus points.

Not bad for a kid whose been around for a short while and certainly worth pondering over in the pursuit of innovative teacher development initiatives.

Open Letter lays down Gauntlet for White South Africans

Some open letters break a trend, like the one by Gillian Schutte – a South African with a powerfully polarizing resumè – if such a thing exists. The trend she breaks, in my view, is a welcoming commitment to a palatable choice of language to tackle an issue of monstrous proportions. Thank you Gillian for letting me see the ugly side of a broken society in your well-crafted gauntlet without resorting to vulgarity.

Why personal accounts matter

Although it is not sure whether John Comaroff, who edited The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje, intended to do so, his introduction provides valuable reasons why we should encourage our young people to document, write personal accounts.

It’s been very clear to us in working with literacy improvement initiatives in South Africa that there is a lack of student writing. Students simply re-write what is either on the blackboard or what is in a book. They do not,in most south African schools, create their own work.

It is likely that we are not holding up before our students the value of the work they can produce themselves.

When Comaroff reflected over Sol Plaatje’s diary, he speaks specifically to this value and noted that the “account of the siege of Mafeking…introduces some new substantive material”. As such it holds significant historical value. But, not just that, he also pointed out that, “it presents a familiar situation in novel perspective”.

“Perspective” is everything, a sage, once said. We have seen time and again what our young students capture, for example, when we allow them to use the camera features of the mobile phones we use for projects. When we then proceeded to ask them to construct paragraphs describing what they saw, we are afforded the opportunity to see what the child sees.

More of these opportunities, will not only give us more material to use as a basis to sharpen literacy skills, but also provide the future with a “novel perspective.”