Be a success

This video has had over 4 million views on You Tube. The construction of the video, so that it has an impact, is worth paying attention to. This man is a teacher. He knows how to take a piece of information and plant it right into another human being so that it grows. He has very good social management skills which is why the video has had so many views. The message addresses the criteria/ indicators for self-awareness but by the end of the video he is addressing the criteria for self- management. We have to take a positive view of ourselves and push through on it so we become confident, resilient and adaptable.

Personal and Social Capability meets ICT

Personal and Social Capability in a nutshell

We are rolling out the Australian National Curriculum. My interests are obviously languages, literacy and ICT but I am in the Personal and Social Capability teacher learning community at school for the general competencies. It builds on all the work I have done with regard to well-being being one of our core responsibilities as a teacher. I was wondering , though, since I do have a commitment to ICT in the classroom and well-being, how well the Personal and Social Capability would mesh with ICT and classroom use of technology. I put the four elements of the Personal and Social Capability into a grid and then the general descriptors for each element. You can download your own copy if you want to:PAS in a nutshell.

As I looked at it, I thought we could not be doing better at getting a good fit between ICT and the Personal and Social Capability and that, if we were to view it through the PASC lens, we would have a very good and solid structure for introducing, implementing and using ICT in our schools. PASC at its varying levels is about developing sound communication, encouraging leadership, creating a basis for understanding in relationships, developing confidence and resilience and recognising personal qualities and achievements. It is about enabling or blocking yourself as a person and about enabling or blocking others within a group.

Technology offers opportunities for all these things. You can publish to the web or present in class to create a sense of recognition and self worth. You can use safe online sites like Twiducate and create a sound, ongoing feedback loop which encourages reflective practice. If you engage with safe online communities or look at sites from around the work you help to build international and global connections and perspectives. To use technology really well you have to be able to communicate effectively. The audience can be an international audience or you could be being read/viewed by a whole class of students. If you have problems you have to engage with others to resolve them because no-one can know everything about technology. You can’t just throw your phone on the floor because it is not doing what you want. Technology offers so many opportunities for learning and teaching. Everyone can learn and everyone can teach. More importantly, that has to be conducted in a civilised way so looking at cyberbullying and cybercrime can be part and parcel of technology use in class and the social capability offers some good indicators for showing that is occurring and it can be logically managed in an education environment.

ACARA app for iPhone or iPad

I highly recommend this ACARA app for the Australian National Curriculum. A well thought out application for iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch can do much to alleviate the stress and strain of trying to come to grips with curriculum issues as a teacher. We are preparing and delivering lessons, marking, teaching, assessing.When there are new curriculum requirements and directions it always puts on the strain into an already very busy schedule. So why not use technology to lighten the burden? I downloaded relevant shape papers from the ACARA curriculum site. They are worth having but they take time to go through. The beauty of this app is that it gets the key points across one tablet page at a time. You can get a good overview, you can take in the relevant information and you are just dealing with one small screen. At no stage do you think it’s too much. The ACARA app is put together so you can navigate through the current requirements and since it is presented in tablet form then it cannot be too dense in its approach. I found it helpful. It has made me realise that apps have their place when you want people to learn something and come to terms with it. Instead of giving them 10 or 20 A4 pages to read – give them an application which logically takes them through the key features of what you want them to know. The app makes you more aware of the structure of the national curriculum. It makes you see at a glance what the key features of each area are. In time the app can link us to examples, key papers, key resources. It can reach out for us so we can access what we need to know. I think it’s a good addition to our National Curriculum information – the more so because it is on something I have with me all the time. Currently it is on my iPod Touch but I shall download it onto my iPad too. The fact I have seen this has made me think we need to try to create some applications for our classwork and courses. It really is a straight forward way of learning information and then branching out from that.