Download - Patricia Wastiau, conclusions
General report and conclusionsFriday 12 June 2009
Patricia WastiauEuropean Schoolnet
• VISION ABOUT 21st CENTURY LEARNING
• WHICH LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN LINE WITH THIS VISION?
• HOW TO GO THERE?
• REASONS TO COOPERATE AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL
• HOW TO COOPERATE?
• ….AND SOME ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
• Bigger challenges and more responsibilities for new generations needing to be prepared for it and better skilled
• First class skills and excellence to be provided FOR ALL,
• ICT-based education is a way to support it through personalisation of learning and teaching
• A shift in the fight against the digital divide: from ‘access’ to ‘use’
VISION ABOUT 21st CENTURY LEARNING
• What are the skills of the 21st century?
• Flexibility, openness, etc. and ?????
• An ethical challenge: ‘understanding the sense
of every action; what is acceptable, what is not’ Lord Puttnam
WHICH LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN LINE WITH THIS VISION?
A USEFUL REMINDERS:
• the enormous potential and spontaneous interest of pupils/students to learn by themselves (self organised learning environments; self organised mediation environments)
• listening to pupils/students telling us how we can help them to learn and what they need to learn;
• the issue is not that new; what is new is the possibility to connect content, thanks to new technologies and digitalization
• The issue is not a technological one
• A comprehensive/systemic vision is needed addressing teachers skills, learning environment, available digital content, etc.
• Starting from the problems faced by education to pave the way for ICT integration in schools (fight against disengagement, developing 21st century skills, teachers professional development, assessment challenges, etc. )
HOW TO GO THERE?
More specifically:
• Starting with a change in assessment
• Recognising that innovation comes from top and down
• Mainstreaming ICT pedagogy
• Networking between teacher education institutions to facilitate capacity-building, peer-learning on ICT in education integration for pre-service teachers
• Any reform of teacher education requires buy-in from leaders of teacher education institutions - involving Deans of Education is key to this process.
• Ongoing communities of practice for pre- and in-service teachers to help consolidate new approaches and pedagogies, by facilitating peer to peer support, and avoiding the isolation often experienced by teachers
• Peer learning assessment of digital educational resources
• how to get the full potential of ICT through to heads of schools (not skilled for that)?
• How to ensure that all can access excellence in more and more decentralised systems
• How to achieve policy alignment given division of responsibilities within organisations
Difficulties to overcome:
• we share more common points than differences and an existing appetite to exchange;
• Enlarge our vision through comparisons• To be ready for when the right times come even if not
applicable now; • to combine our forces to reach a learning age, more
than an information or knowledge society
REASONS TO COOPERATE AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL
• Be committed to share information• Good practices• Solve common problems• The more we show what is happening in the classroom,
the more we’ll progress• Focus on a small number of areas
HOW TO COOPERATE?
• Informal learning initiatives
• Including teachers and heads of teachers in the
process
• More analysis about the skills needed to prepare future citizens to be able to face complex challenges
• Ethics of ICT
….AND SOME ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Change the rules of the game,….
or the game itself?