Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
what is an elearning profesional?
These are my first thoughts for activity 1.2 on H808.
Having listened to the audio presentation from the course authors, with their personal views on what is meant by 'the eLearning professional', I found most resonance with the first two: Robin Mason (who, sadly, died recently) and Gill Kirkup. Robin mentions the blend of research and practice and is slightly sad that practice seems to dominate. Gill mentions the strength of belonging to a professional community. The other speakers also have ideas that I agree with but it is the ideas just mentioned above that I am going to attempt to expand on with my own views.
As what I am going to call (for now) a 'professional educator', I am passionate about trying to ensure that teachers at all levels participate in a regular and frequent discourse about not only their practice but recent and relevant research in their area. Perhaps I should first of all outline how my journey towards becoming a professional educator has brought me to this view - because it wasn't always so!
I started teacher training with what was then called a Cert Ed back in 1975 and commenced my teaching after that, without a degree at all. I was and am first and foremost a Maths teacher and, with all that I do nowadays (please do read on if you haven't fallen asleep already), it's the joy of seeing young people do well at their Maths which still thrills me - results for this year's GCSE exams out this week ... and I still get on edge after 31 years of it! However, I discovered that I also had a passion for trying to encourage other Maths teachers to develop - and a little course that I did back in the 80s (Developing Mathematical Thinking) not only helped my crystallise some of those ideas, it also got me started with the Open University (OU). So I became a Head of Department for Maths in a comprehensive school and later went on to do a little advisory work for the Local Authority - much of which involved setting up professional self support groups (communities). My (informal) mentor advised that I really should do a degree so I decided to do the OU's Advanced Diploma in Education in Management and Leadership. Oh dear, the study bug had got me in its grip and I went on to do the MA as well, which involved very small scale research.
So now I was blending my practice in the classroom, my passion for encouraging other teachers (also nurtured through working with Roehampton on their PGCE course) and some ideas about professional educators and leadership. During this period I also became what was known as a Senior Teacher (now usually called Assistant Head Teachers) in a different school.
My tutor on the MA (now a fast friend) asked me to give a talk to some prospective MA students and before I knew it, I was swept up on another wave of professional education - as an Associate Lecturer (tutor) on the MA in education. Alongside being by now a Deputy Head teacher, I was encouraged by my staff tutor to do the EdD - which I achieved in 2007. I tutored for five years on an online only version of a course in curriculum and learning and this is my second year tutoring on a 'blended' course on educational research methods - it uses both face to face and online aspects of learning and teaching. I have also just been allocated my first EdD student to supervise - this will involve face to face, telephone. e-mail. and hopefully some more forms of supervision.
In the day job (at secondary school) I have pioneered getting staff to set up wikis to encourage collaborative and reflective learning for their GCSE and Key Stage 3 students. I have also set up two staff Professional Development (PD) wikis - the first of these has really taken off in terms of teachers and other staff publishing their professional reflections as well as sharing resources and offering help and support to one another. The second is very specifically aimed at our in house PD programme and goes live this week! If you are interested, it's http://www.splatshs.wetpaint.com/ (the first one is currently a private wiki but I am going to ask those who wish to if they will publish their reflections from it on the new public site).
I've just finished the course H809 - researching in online environments and learned a lot about blogging, amongst other things!
So, to come back to the real point of this exercise, am I a professional educator or an eLearning professional - or both? At the moment, I think I am a professional educator with an 'e' bias! I'll come back to the question in a few months' time....
Having listened to the audio presentation from the course authors, with their personal views on what is meant by 'the eLearning professional', I found most resonance with the first two: Robin Mason (who, sadly, died recently) and Gill Kirkup. Robin mentions the blend of research and practice and is slightly sad that practice seems to dominate. Gill mentions the strength of belonging to a professional community. The other speakers also have ideas that I agree with but it is the ideas just mentioned above that I am going to attempt to expand on with my own views.
As what I am going to call (for now) a 'professional educator', I am passionate about trying to ensure that teachers at all levels participate in a regular and frequent discourse about not only their practice but recent and relevant research in their area. Perhaps I should first of all outline how my journey towards becoming a professional educator has brought me to this view - because it wasn't always so!
I started teacher training with what was then called a Cert Ed back in 1975 and commenced my teaching after that, without a degree at all. I was and am first and foremost a Maths teacher and, with all that I do nowadays (please do read on if you haven't fallen asleep already), it's the joy of seeing young people do well at their Maths which still thrills me - results for this year's GCSE exams out this week ... and I still get on edge after 31 years of it! However, I discovered that I also had a passion for trying to encourage other Maths teachers to develop - and a little course that I did back in the 80s (Developing Mathematical Thinking) not only helped my crystallise some of those ideas, it also got me started with the Open University (OU). So I became a Head of Department for Maths in a comprehensive school and later went on to do a little advisory work for the Local Authority - much of which involved setting up professional self support groups (communities). My (informal) mentor advised that I really should do a degree so I decided to do the OU's Advanced Diploma in Education in Management and Leadership. Oh dear, the study bug had got me in its grip and I went on to do the MA as well, which involved very small scale research.
So now I was blending my practice in the classroom, my passion for encouraging other teachers (also nurtured through working with Roehampton on their PGCE course) and some ideas about professional educators and leadership. During this period I also became what was known as a Senior Teacher (now usually called Assistant Head Teachers) in a different school.
My tutor on the MA (now a fast friend) asked me to give a talk to some prospective MA students and before I knew it, I was swept up on another wave of professional education - as an Associate Lecturer (tutor) on the MA in education. Alongside being by now a Deputy Head teacher, I was encouraged by my staff tutor to do the EdD - which I achieved in 2007. I tutored for five years on an online only version of a course in curriculum and learning and this is my second year tutoring on a 'blended' course on educational research methods - it uses both face to face and online aspects of learning and teaching. I have also just been allocated my first EdD student to supervise - this will involve face to face, telephone. e-mail. and hopefully some more forms of supervision.
In the day job (at secondary school) I have pioneered getting staff to set up wikis to encourage collaborative and reflective learning for their GCSE and Key Stage 3 students. I have also set up two staff Professional Development (PD) wikis - the first of these has really taken off in terms of teachers and other staff publishing their professional reflections as well as sharing resources and offering help and support to one another. The second is very specifically aimed at our in house PD programme and goes live this week! If you are interested, it's http://www.splatshs.wetpaint.com/ (the first one is currently a private wiki but I am going to ask those who wish to if they will publish their reflections from it on the new public site).
I've just finished the course H809 - researching in online environments and learned a lot about blogging, amongst other things!
So, to come back to the real point of this exercise, am I a professional educator or an eLearning professional - or both? At the moment, I think I am a professional educator with an 'e' bias! I'll come back to the question in a few months' time....
Monday, August 24, 2009
starting a new course
The website went live today for an official start next week so I can get a look at the materials etc for my latest study venture - the Open University module H808 'The elearning professional'.
Very excited as I should be learning about podcasting and eportfolios and also hopefully getting a lot of good ideas for my practice with my own OU tutor group.
Here goes ...
Very excited as I should be learning about podcasting and eportfolios and also hopefully getting a lot of good ideas for my practice with my own OU tutor group.
Here goes ...
Saturday, August 1, 2009
two more on mainly school ideas
Two more recent posts on mainly school ideas: one about my new CPD wiki and one about lesson observation ideas.
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