Edited by Keith Redman

Topics covered in this edition include:

• Launch of new book about Connecting Lives and Learning (CLL)
• 1:1 Laptop Learning Hub – Register NOW for new Hub commencing 12 August
• ANSN Interactive Whiteboards second Hub for 2010 starts on 11 August
• Dimensions of Learning (DoL): Advanced professional learning sessions in NT
• Reminder about Cognitive CoachingSM sessions in Brisbane, 2010/2011
• Two-day Summit on ‘Differentiation’, Brisbane, 9-10 September
• ANSN website redesign: Link to Connecting Lives and Learning
• Thoughts on the nature of leadership (continued)
• Reports on DoL Hubs in the next edition of E-News
• Some interesting reading
• Some interesting listening

Launch of new book about Connecting Lives and Learning (CLL)

Wakefield Press is about to launch Connecting Lives and Learning: Renewing Pedagogy in the Middle Years, edited by Brenton Prosser, Bill Lucas and Alan Reid.

The launch is being held on Friday 13 August 2010 at 5.00 pm, at MC1-05 The Mawson Centre, Mawson Lakes Campus, University of South Australia. Pat Thomson, Visiting Scholar from the University of Nottingham in the UK will perform the launch.

If you are interested in attending the launch, RSVP no later than Thursday 12 August  by email to sarah.rose@unisa.edu.au or phone 08 8302 4215. Also contact Sarah for details of how to order the book.

ANSN has been involved with CLL for a number of years. Based on material collected through the project, this book presents stories from teachers in Adelaide’s lower socio-economic northern urban fringe, telling of their attempts to develop new ways of teaching and learning that engage students in intellectually challenging tasks – making real attempts for change.

To find out more about CLL and the resources available through its revised website, click here

1:1 Laptop Learning Hub – Register NOW for new Hub commencing 12 August

Jill Reading (below, left) reports that the inaugural 1:1 Laptop Learning Hub concluded at the end of July, with participants feeling they had learned valuable strategies and found many new programs and websites that they will use with students in a 1:1 situation. See below for photos from the sessions – Laura and Sue working as a pair (centre) and Juliet and Laura (right).

  

The second hub will commence in Melbourne on 12 August. If you are very quick, you can still register for a place. It will run over 4 days in Term 3 and 4 in 2010 and will be presented at Williamstown Primary in Melbourne, Victoria. The hub aims are to:

• build a learning and sharing community where ideas and good practice can be shared in supportive environment;
• deliver a comprehensive training program so participants will have confidence teaching where very student has access to a laptop;
• support student learning needs by exploring the opportunities for innovative teaching and learning using laptops; and
• share and develop resources with other teachers to use back at school.

Act now to register! Email Jill Reading on reading.jill.z@edumail.vic.gov.au or ring her mobile at 0403 131 503.

Jill also reports that interest has been shown from schools in Perth, Hobart, Adelaide, Darwin and Queensland, around Townsville. She is inviting further schools or groups of schools in these areas to register their interest in hubs that would be presented later in 2010, in 2 lots of 2 days. If you are interested in participating at one of these locations, or if you want to enquire about the further possibility of running a program for your staff or in your own area, please contact Jill Reading on reading.jill.z@edumail.vic.gov.au or 0403 131 503.

ANSN Interactive Whiteboards second Hub for 2010 starts on 11 August

The ANSN has been at the forefront of IWB training in Victoria, with over 600 teachers taking part in our IWB Hubs since the work began in 2007. The network fosters a cooperative learning environment based on an action research approach to learning. In Term 3, the ANSN is continuing its series of successful IWB hubs with a series of two two-day hubs in Victoria in 2010

Andrea Federico (below left, with photos of participants at the Hub run earlier this year) reminds readers of E-News that a new two-day Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) Hub will start on 11 August at University Park Primary School (formally St Albans South Primary School) If you are very quick, you can still register to participate.

    

To find out more about this Hub, and to register, email kate.cooper@ansn.edu.au
Or click here to go to our website and download the flyer and faxback form.

For more details about the work of IWB Hubs in general, or to express your interest in attending future Hub activities, you can also email Andrea Federico at: federico.andrea.l@edumail.vic.gov.au

Dimensions of Learning (DoL): Advanced professional learning sessions in NT

Tina Doe reminds readers that due to demand she will be starting a second Advanced DoL Hub in the Northern Territory – with some of its activities linking to the original Hub. It is not too late to book into this significant opportunity for Northern Territory educators. Participants will be able to reinvigorate their DoL practice and/or deepen their DoL knowledge and leadership. Tina will facilitate the sessions, which will be staged at CDU Casuarina campus. Dates are as follows.

Day 1 Advanced DoL, Hub #2 only: Tuesday14th September 
Day 2: Advanced DoL, Hubs #1 & #2 together:  Wednesday 15th September
Day 5, Showcase, Hubs #1 & #2 together: Friday 5th November

To register, or for more details, please contact Tina at tina.doe@ansn.edu.au or by mobile at 0421 440 725.

Reminder about Cognitive CoachingSM sessions in Brisbane, 2010/2011

Have you booked your place yet for the Cognitive Coaching training sessions that are scheduled for Brisbane? As advised in earlier editions of E-News, they will be split over 2 school years, with the first 4 days of training from 25–28 October 2010 and the remaining 4 days in Term 1 of 2011 (on dates to be confirmed).

The eight days of Foundation training provided by ANSN offer a hands-on, reflective process, where participants build their understanding about being a cognitive coach within a school context. Participants practise and internalise effective strategies that provide educators with skills and dispositions to build high levels of communication for supporting colleagues – in leadership teams, coaching partnerships, mentoring relationships or teaching related issues. The power of Cognitive Coaching lies in the applicability of the knowledge and skills to any context – professional or personal – in which educators may work.

You can read about Cognitive Coaching in detail at www.cognitivecoaching.com. If you have questions or if you wish to discuss the benefits for you and your school, please email Gavin Grift (who in addition to his work with ANSN is now Director of Professional Learning at Hawker Brownlow Professional Learning Solutions) at ggrift@hbe.com.au or contact Gavin on his mobile at 0458 094 050.

Two-day Summit on ‘Differentiation’, Brisbane, 9-10 September

Gavin Grift reports that Hawker-Brownlow Professional Learning Solutions will be presenting a two-day Summit on ‘Differentiation’ in Brisbane on 9-10 September. The Summit will provide practical strategies to differentiate teacher practice to all students from primary to secondary levels. Participants will learn how to accommodate different learning styles and modalities through practical strategies and techniques. Participants can choose to attend sessions from two experts in the field of differentiation: Carolyn Coil and Rachel Billmeyer, as follows.

Carolyn Coil focusing on Differentiated Interventions
Day 1: Intervention and Differentiated Instruction: How They Work Together
Day 2: Motivating All Students: Strategies to Use with the Intervention Approach

Rachel Billmeyer focusing on Differentiated Strategies: Engage the Learner
Day 1: Building Strategic Learners for a Differentiated Classroom
Day 2: Reading Strategies to Differentiate Learning Across Disciplines

Gavin advises that there is a discount of $50 per day for ANSN members ($100 discount if they attend both days) on the registration fee for the Differentiation Summit.

For details and registration, click here

ANSN website redesign: Link to Connecting Lives and Learning

The ANSN website improvement program continues. Have a look occasionally, at www.ansn.edu.au/ and send any feedback to John.Hogan@bigpond.com.

Also, as reported earlier in relation to the CLL book launch, the Connecting Lives and Learning website link on the ANSN website has been reshaped as a web and/or CD resource. To check out the site, go to
http://www.ansn.edu.au/connecting_lives_and_learning_resource_website or just go to www.ansn.edu.auexploring new ideas and then on connecting lives and learning. Among a number of useful resources and stories about the project and associated classroom practice, you will find an introduction to action research involving teachers. and click first on

Thoughts on the nature of leadership (continued)

In the previous edition of E-News, John Hogan brought to our notice some of the chapter headings in a book he was reading, about the tasks that face school leaders. The book is Learning as a Way of Learning – Lessons from the Struggle for Social Justice by Stephen Preskill and Stephen D Brookfield and gives food for thought on a number of levels. As a reminder, the tasks included:

• Learning to be open to the contributions of others...
• Learning how to reflect critically on one’s practice…
• Learning to support the growth of others....
• Learning how to develop collective leadership....
• Learning to analyse experience....
• Learning to question....
• Learning democracy....
• Learning to sustain hope in the midst of struggle....
• Learning to create community...

In his recent weekly notes to people on his emailing list, John quoted the authors’ comments about the fifth of these – Learning to analyse experience – as follows.

One of the most difficult dimensions of this task is when its practice leads us to challenge old assumptions and then to reconfigure accepted practices. In the conventional notion of leadership, a leader is not supposed to change her mind too much. She should create a vision, commit to it, and then relentlessly pursue it through hell or high water. Changing your mind is not an option in this model because to do so is perceived as a sign of weakness, an indication that you don’t have the guts to push your agenda, or that you must have misdiagnosed the situation to begin with. We are particularly intrigued with those activist leaders who manage to engage publicly in reflection on experience – especially when their analysis led to radical shifts in direction – without weakening people’s confidence in them.

Reports on DoL Hubs in the next edition of E-News

Hanan Harrison called from Queensland to say that she is flat out running Hubs/training sessions in Rockhampton and Brisbane, with lots of time on the road – hence this is probably the first time in five years that she hasn’t had a formal report for E-News! There has been very positive feedback from participants in her sessions and she will have a full report for the next edition of E-News. For details of Hanan’s current DoL work or to register interest in participating in future sessions, email h.harrison@optusnet.com.au

Some interesting reading

Australian Policy Online (APO) draws our attention to the following items. (To read or download one, Ctrl + click on the link).

Developing leadership potential for technology integration

Paper in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 26, No 5, 2010
reports findings from a large 2-year, mixed-methods study investigating how beginning teachers are learning to teach with information and communication technology (ICT).

Assessing the effects of ICT in education

Report from OECD, Directorate for Education reports that despite heavy investment by education systems in technology since the early 1980s, international indicators, criteria and international comparisons on technology uptake and use in education are rare.

The impact of high stakes test driven accountability

Brian Caldwell, in an Australian Education Union paper, argues that innovation, creativity and passion are becoming increasingly constrained by an unprecedented level of centralisation, standardisation and bureaucratisation in education.

Accountability and the public purposes of education

Alan Reid, in another Australian Education Union paper, frames MySchool as an accountability strategy in the context of the purposes of education.

Towards a pre-teen typology of digital media

Mary Allan and Mick Grimley, in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 26, No 5, 2010, write that although prior research has identified children as avid users of new technologies, insufficient studies have explored their patterns of use. In this paper, they investigate how New Zealand pre-teens use technology out of school.

Interventions early in school as a means to improve higher education outcomes for disadvantaged (particularly low SES) students

Trevor Gale, from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), reports on findings from research that was prompted by concerns about the long-term under-representation of some population groups within Australian higher education.

Resourcing schools in Australia

In the context of a major Review of Funding for Schooling in Australia, Jack Keating  (writing for the Foundation for Young Australians), has produced a proposal that responds to fundamental issues. These include consideration of the principles against which funding should be measured and the most effective means of distributing resources.

Inside Story draws our attention to the following items. (To read or download one, Ctrl + click on the link).

Are autonomous schools the answer?
Dahle Suggett writes that Australian policymakers are undoubtedly watching developments in Britain and the United States with interest. However, she asks, how much can we learn from systems that are so different from our own?

Back to schools
Ben Eltham notes that schools policy is back on the election agenda, but reflects on whether this will lead to substantial reforms.

Some interesting listening

On Monday 2 August, ABC National’s Life Matters included an item entitled Why Education Isn't Educating. Visiting British sociologist Frank Furedi elaborated on his argument that there's a crisis in adult authority in our schools.

On Tuesday 27 July, Life Matters had an item on The Popularity of ‘Bad Kids’. Discussion considered the commonly held view idea that teenagers labeled ‘anti-social’, or minor offenders, gain in popularity as they move through high school because their peers are drawn to their rule-breaking. New research findings show this is far from the case.

To listen or download the podcasts, go to http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters