Testing Our Children Towards Mediocrity

In Australia, we have adopted a number of school-wide tests, of which NAPLAN is just one. NAPLAN does three-yearly sample assessments in science, literacy, civics and citizenship, and also information and communication technology (ICT). This is done for grades 3, 5, 7, & 9. To quote government documents, NAPLAN is designed to test "... the sorts of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life, such as reading, writing, spelling and numeracy." The results have just been released, and as usual, we are castigating our schools and teachers for failing to teach well enough to the test (see HERE).

When we first started using NAPLAN, Australia was ranked highly in international assessments like PISA. But, as our education systems have increased the volume of testing with tools like NAPLAN, we have lost sight of their original purpose.

They were meant to provide advice to teachers and systems, about the areas of curriculum where students need additional help; they were never meant to be the key driver of pedagogy and classroom practice. It is clear now that teachers have (not surprisingly) increasingly taught to the test. But who could blame them!

Over the last 10 years our results in the international PISA assessments have been dropping in some areas. I believe that this, at least in part, is due to tests like NAPLAN shaping the curriculum and methods that teachers use. Such 'shaping' is inevitable in an environment of constant system-wide testing. I believe that this pressure shapes behaviour and priorities, as teachers and principals contemplate and predict what might be in the test. Is this the best we can do? Is the key goal of education to teach content in order to pass a test, devised by people who don't know the specific needs and background of the children from varied communities? I believe that the answer is no! 

Tests like NAPLAN are what assessment experts call summative assessment tools. They are designed to assess in objective ways what children know and don't know, as well as what they can and cannot do. They assess overall student achievements, monitor system wide student progress, identify areas of under and over performance, assess skills development, and in some cases, give direction guidance in relation to curriculum content.

But there is a problem with such system wide summative approaches. Key among these weaknesses is that no matter how hard you try to ensure that such tests are used to inform classroom pedagogy and right choices with curriculum content and skills development, teachers end up simply teaching to the test!

This type of assessment involves someone other than the teacher, to set a test that is designed to evaluate student learning at the end of a period of time, or a course of work. In summative assessment, performance is evaluated against a specific standard that is decided by people other than the teachers who knows the students.

The challenge for schools and their teachers is that they end up being criticized if the school 'under performs'. So, they try make sure that they teach to the test next time. Even worse, some parents send their children off to additional classes after school to be better equipped for the test. Practice tests abound in shops. We then end up in an endless cycle of teaching our students with one major purpose; to do well on tests. What's lost in such a vicious cycle is any sense of formative assessment of children by their teachers. The goal of formative assessment sets out to monitor student learning and provide feedback that teachers can then use to improve their teaching, and to help their students to improve their learning. Worse still, we lose sight of the overall key aim of education to shape the character of our students. School education was never meant to be a skill factory, it was meant to serve as a safe place where children could grow in knowledge, skills, human virtues and capabilities that would allow them to live and cope with life.

Above: My one-teacher school (guest teacher)

As a young primary school teacher, I was free of the ongoing incessant use of summative state-wide assessment. And so, I was free to use my own formative assessment strategies that were tailored to assess my students learning. Of course, I used lots of informal observation as well. I did this not just for individuals who had learning problems, but also for groups of learners of similar abilities, and also for my class as a whole. My observations and formative assessment occurred in subjects across the curriculum, including reading and writing, spelling, mathematics, social sciences, science and more. As a result, my students improved and made significant progress. In the case of students with specific weaknesses I devised my own activities and programs to help them improve. I'd then assess their progress and reassess my methods in light of their progress or lack of it. I used varied instruction programs and methods for up to four ability groups in my regular classes. I taught even more when in a one-teacher rural school with up to 31 students in the one room across grades Kindergarten to Grade 6. Freed from the need to teach to a national test, I was able to concentrate on my students as learners in many varied ways. But as well, I would administer key summative tests in areas like reading, spelling and maths on a regular basis, simply to see whether my students were reaching age related standards.

Overall, my 'formative' assessment was designed to help me teach so that students grew in skills and knowledge, as well as being equipped for life. Would they grow up with positive self esteem, could they cope with failure? Did they have human qualities of humility, kindness, a desire to serve and so on. Teachers today spend so much time testing, I wonder how they find time to know their students well enough to help shape them as people. My simple point is that if we over use summative testing regimes, we end up with many unintended consequences that do little to help children grow as learners. 

How can we stop this nonsense?

Step 1 - If we must have central system wide curricula, then let's involve the best of our teachers at every grade level in curriculum development. Let's always inform the process of review with the work of our best teachers. And let's limit it as much as possible.

Step 2 - Help teachers to understand thew role of formative assessment and identify the best of our practitioners to teach other teachers how to use formative approaches to grow and shape their students as learners and people.

Step 3 - Only use summative assessment regimes to inform system wide performance and to guide curriculum content, not to dictate and shape the methods and pedagogy of individual teachers. 

Step 4 - Offer additional professional development courses and ensure that there are expert teachers in every school, who help to equip colleagues with pedagogies that will assist them to grow children as learners and people. 

Step 5 - Treat teachers as professionals and stop the constant abuse of schools by politicians, media and the community at large.

Step 6 - Lets reward teachers for success in helping all of their students to grow as learners, not against external measures, but in relation to the individual growth and achievement of their students. 

Old School / New School: Transforming Australia's Education System

As well as being a teacher and educational researcher, I have also been involved in the business community (in my spare time!) for over 20 years. In the first instance, this was to try to connect university researchers with business and industry. However, I am now the President of one of Australia's leading business organisations, the New South Wales Business Chamber (NSWBC). My background in education has recently aligned strongly with a key initiative of the Chamber to bring together varied interest groups to consider reform in school education.

As President of this organisation, I was involved in the launch today of a bold initiative that seeks to help unite teachers, parents, educational authorities, researchers and government to reform school education. We feel strongly about this, because we live in a world that is changing rapidly, and know that education is critical as we face these changes. New forms of employment are emerging, and once common occupations are disappearing. As well, technology is disrupting every area of life creating challenges to our previous understanding of the nature of work. Some jobs will disappear completely as artificial intelligence enables computers and robots to take over occupations and change others. Our changing world requires innovation in the education of our children. Our report draws on varied parties and was launched today in Sydney. It is titled 'Old School / New School' and can be downloaded HERE.

The report is the beginning or our efforts to engage many in conversation as we face a transforming world. We believe that we need to:

• Take the very best of our 'Old School' system that has served us well for many decades and combine it with new world thinking to help the next wave of young people take their place in the world.
• The way young people learn is changing, and new ways of teaching are emerging.
• We want to take the very best of our Old School system and combine it with new world thinking to help the next wave of young people flourish.
• For key policy makers, this requires them to find better ways to support teachers, principals and industry to create the right spaces, choices and career opportunities for the next generation of young people.
• For the business community, this is about creating workplaces that foster innovation and life-long learning.
• For our dedicated teachers, this is about helping educators grow their professional skills, share their knowledge and demonstrate what is possible for our schools.
• For young people, this is about having their voices heard and sharing what they need to move into work, further study and adult life.

Other speakers at the launch today included our CEO Stephen Cartwright, Eddie Woo a well-known maths teacher and YouTube star (WooTube), Julie Sonnemann (Grattan Institute) and the Minister of Education Rob Stokes.

The report argues that this is a shared responsibility at three levels:

Architects - establish education policy, curriculum frameworks and assessment frameworks. They include education authorities, education councils and authorities, employers and business associations.

Builders - deliver learning experiences and develop learners. They include teachers, parents, principals, parent and community groups, professional associations, universities.

Clients - are the end users of the education system. These include students, families, employers, and universities.

The report sets out 6 ideas to start building a new school system as discussions starters:

• Pilot proven teaching and learning approaches across multiple schools at once.
• Publish data tracking student progress and outcomes post school.
• Revamp the HSC to set all students on the right pathway to work.
• Recognise teachers and support their development through professional learning hubs.
• Ensure every child in every school has support services they need to learn and thrive, including careers advice and mentoring for high risk students.
• Integrate and measure enterprise skills from Year 9 on.

 

The NSW Business Chamber is also seeking your ideas. We want your varied perspectives, key ideas, insights and feedback so that, together, we can build the New School system of the future. I want to encourage you to go online, visit our site and become part of this initiative. The purpose is NOT for business to try to tell schools and educators what needs to be done. Rather, we want to open up dialogue between all key stakeholders for the benefit of our students, teachers and the educational future of our nation.

Please visit our Old School / New School and become part of this collaboration. 

5 Ways To Make School Boring

A child in a family I know started school for the first time this year. She was excited and couldn't wait to get there. Just months later, she looks forward to weekends and holidays. Recently, when she came home and was asked what sort of day she had, she hesitated and pondered the question and then replied:

"I think school is more about working than learning".

This 5-year-old arrived at school able to read, count and add up, and with a extensive general knowledge and a highly creative and inquisitive mind. How would you turn a child like this off school?

Step 1 - Make her do all of the same things she could already do before she arrived at school. Try to teach her to count to 10, and introduce the alphabet and sounds, even though she was able to count well beyond 100, had knowledge of the alphabet and sound symbol relationships, could spell many words, and was reading at a 4th grade level.

Step 2 - During library visits, insist she only borrows simple picture books, even though she was reading chapter books at home. Then watch go home her despondently without a book at all.

Step 3 - Reduce the activities that invite her to imagine, explore her world and to find out. Instead, replace these with drill and repetition of things she knew before she came to school.

Step 4 - Assume when she spends lots of time talking to other children in class, that she is distracted, rather than simply being bored.

Step 5 - Insist that she follow the same curriculum, and cope with the same methods as other children in the room who have not yet learned to read, write, spell and add up.

This little girl when asked by her family to talk about the best things to happen each day at school, would usually start with recess and lunch, because at these times she could play creatively with her friends.

Her innocent comment about school being more about 'working' than 'learning' is quite insightful. But at the same time, it is VERY sad, because it shows how little school was stimulating and challenging her. As teachers, we need to reflect on this story and ask ourselves regularly three questions about our methods, curriculum and general pedagogy:

1. How often do I do I implement activities designed to fill up lots of time, rather than offering varied possibilities for learning?
2. Do I take into consideration the varied abilities of my students, or simply teach to the 'middle'?
3. Am I aware of the varied abilities of my students and do I plan to meet their varied needs?

As a former teacher myself, including a number of year teaching in a sole charge school with 31 children in seven grades (Kindergarten to Grade 6), I understand the daily challenges as a teacher. But it is possible to plan activities for varied abilities in the same classroom, and to shift our focus from just 'working' to 'learning'.

Left: The One-teacher school where I taught



Other related posts

Six Steps that Will Change Learners

Boys & Learning: Build, Design, Create & Experiment

How Can Teaching Change Learners: 6 Steps

Questions, Exploration & Learning

Raising Chickens: The Power of Experience for Learning

Story and literature as a springboard to other Learning

Family outing to explore the real 'My Place'

Classrooms and homes are places where children can encounter a complex range of books, oral stories, good videos and television programs. Story is everywhere, and memorable stories become part of the substance of children's lives. They feed their language, story-making ability, creativity and other forms of learning. The most exciting classrooms and homes are places where children and adults:

• Share stories with each other and incorporate storybook language into classroom, playground and home life.
• Spontaneously respond to stories - 'Can I make my own book like Jeannie's'? (Jeannie Baker is the master of collage).
• Gossip about stories - 'Have you seen this book'? 'Did you watch Toy Story last night'? 'My big brother told me this weird story about...'. 'Mrs watts, this story reminds me of that movie we watched..'. 'Have you read some of the other Berenstain Bear books?'
• Incorporate stories into their playground and outdoor activities - 'Let's do the Big Bad Wolf, and I'm the wolf.' 'Can we play Toy Story, and I'm Woody?'
• Incorporate elements of stories read, seen or heard into their writing.
• Use literature and stories of all kinds as springboards to other forms of learning - 'Can we see if we can sink a boat like in the book?' (This is in response to 'Who Sank the Boat', see below)
• Respond creatively through drawing, movement, song and rhyme, dance, drama.

 Some examples of literature as a springboard

In this post I want to provide examples of how 6 children's books can act as a springboard for meaning making and learning. Examples based on films, videos and life experiences, but literature is sufficient to illustrate what I mean by the above comments.

1. 'The Jolly Postman, or Other People's Letters' by Janet & Allen Ahlberg (1986)

'The Jolly Postman' is a favourite book for many children (and adults). The Ahlberg's inspiration for the 'Jolly Postman' was the fact that their daughter was always upset when they went to the mailbox and none of the letters were for her. So they wrote her a book that was full of her own mail. The text brilliantly weaves together various fairytale characters in a continuous narrative, while introducing readers to varied written genres - letters, a postcard, birthday card, letter from a solicitor etc. The book took five years to make but it won many awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal. You can read my post on the Ahlbergs HERE

Children who read the book, or who share it as a class or group will delight in creating their own version of this unique book, or simply producing their own letters, cards, bills etc based on storybook characters or stories. Classes I have shared the book with have wanted to write and design their own versions of these texts inspired by other books and movies. 

2. 'Where the Forest Meets the Sea' by Jeannie Baker (1987)

Jeannie Baker is a well-known Australian illustrator and author who is a master of collage. She frequently develops her work around environmental themes, or other forms of social commentary. This example of her work is the story of a boy and his father who go out in their boat to fish along the coast of the Daintree Forest in far North Queensland. It's a place where the tropical rainforest meets the sea, but where there are pressures from development. As the story unfolds the boy is confronted by echoes ('ghosts') of what this place was once like - an age of dinosaurs, a time when Indigenous people lived here and so on. It ends with an eerie look at the future. You can read my review of Baker's work HERE.

'Window' (1991) Greenwillow Books

A second example from Baker is 'Window'. This book represents a move from the natural world to the man-made world as she shows once again how development can change the natural world. A mother and her baby look through a window at bush and open space. But with each turn of the page time marches on, and as we look from the same window, the world changes under the impact of people. As the child grows and ages, so too the view changes, from a country scene to dense settlement.  This wordless book won the Children's Book Council (Australia) picture book of the year in 1992.

Both books can inspire readers to produce their own collage, predict the future for a specific place, or contemplate how humanity changes places. Students might write letters to the editor commenting on the social cost of development, contribute to a joint blog with other students interested in a common concern and so on.

Illustration from Jeannie Baker's 'Window'

'Window' offers a special opportunity to find a window at school or home and imagine what it might have looked like out the same window 50 years ago, or perhaps 100 years into the future. The children could draw a series of pictures, caption them or write more extended text (in varied genres such as narrative, recount, exposition etc).

3. 'The Sign of the Seahorse: A Tale of Greed and High Adventure in Two Acts' by Graeme Base (1992)

The 'Sign of the Seahorse' is an illustrated picture book by well-known author and illustrator Graeme Base.  It was published in 1992. Originally designed by Base to become a narrated concert, the story is composed of two acts. We have a hero, a villain and eventually, the victory of good over evil. The story follows the underwater life of Reeftown that is threatened with environmental disaster.

The book explores varied ways to express meaning using language, image and many other devices (e.g. colour, print layout, a map, hidden clues etc). It stimulates creativity and the imagination in ways that can lead spontaneously to many texts, drawings, dramatic skits and so on. With little prompting your children will want to draw their own maps of the reef, record dialogue for a favourite character or scene, create drawings and collage. These varied forms of response will enrich the children's experience of the story and encourage them to deep their understanding of the environmental issues stimulated by the book. You can read my review of the work of Graeme Base HERE.

4. 'Counting on Frank' by Rod Clement (1990)

In 'Counting on Frank' we meet a boy who spends his life trying to solve problems to do with number, area and capacity. Frank speculates about many things. How many dogs identical to his own would it take to fill his room? How many of his Dad could he squeeze into a television? How long it would take to fill his entire bathroom at bath time? One day Frank puts these skills to a very practical use with a good outcome. This is a delightful story that teaches us about mathematical problem solving, estimation and prediction.

You can't read this book without talking about Frank's predictions yourself. In the right hands children can be encouraged to speculate and set up their own means to test their assumptions and predictions. These can be shared in verbal, written and diagrammatic form for hours of fun, and varied literacy, mathematical and scientific learning.  Your class might set up its own competition that requires prediction, estimation or mathematical calculations of all kinds.

5. 'Who Sank the Boat' by Pamela Allen (1982)

Pamela Allen has written and illustrated many wonderful and simple picture books. In 'Who Sank the Boat' her story explores how many animals it takes to sink a boat, and who's at fault!

Besides the sea, on Mr Peffer's place, there lived a cow, a donkey, 

a sheep, a pig, and a tiny little mouse. 

One warm sunny morning for no particular reason, 

they decided to go for a row in the bay . . .

In 'Mr Archimedes Bath' Pamela Allen invites her readers to consider why the water is flooding the floor as each animal hops into his bath. Mr Archimedes climbs in with a goat, a wombat and a kangaroo. In amazement he observes that the water continues to rise and eventually ends up on the floor.

"Can anyone tell me where all this water came from?"

And of course eventually, "Eureka!" he cracks the mystery. He exclaims with joy:

"We make the water go up."

Both these delightful predictable books are wonderful springboards to lots of simple science experiments with buckets, water and varied objects. Children will enjoy experimenting, drawing what they see, writing scientific notes, drawing charts. There are lots of ways to extend the experience of the story, record their new scientific understanding and enrich the literary experience. They might even want to become historians and explore who Archimedes was and what 'Eureka' means. You can read my review of Allen's work HERE.

6.  'My Green Day' by Melanie Walsh (2010)

This is a book suitable for 3-6 year olds. At first appearance it looks like a simple story about a day in one family's life, but it has a twist. It introduces children to ten things that they can do to protect the planet. Each double page has a simple sentence about parts of their day with a fine print explanation for teachers and parents that helps them to explain why each thing they do can help to 'green' the day.

'I eat a free-range egg for my breakfast'
'I put my eggshell in the compost bin ..'
'I help empty the washing machine... and peg our clothes out to dry'. And so on.

The illustrations are simple but eye-catching, use simple tonal variations, strongly contrasting colours and many variations in page shape, cut-outs and so on, to capture attention. The book has the look and feel of recycled paper.

The book can act as a springboard to varied environmental projects. Classes could set up a compost box, begin a worm farm, build a vegetable patch, or learn how to clean things without chemicals. Perhaps they could do their own 'Greed Days' based on their life at home or school. As well, writing, language and drawing can be used to support their varied response to how they might 'green' the day.   
Summing Up

While literature is important as a wonderful source of meaning, language and learning, it can also act as a springboard to other ways to learn and express ongoing explorations and discovery. Story enriches and can stay with you for life. It can have echoes that penetrate other areas of learning in can deepen learning experiences in surprising ways.

Well-known New Zealand author Margaret Mahy was well aware of the way stories crept into her life, and became part of her learning and literary history. When reflecting upon her childhood literary experiences she commented:

"I wrote because I was a reader, and wanted to relive certain reading experiences more intimately by bringing them back out of myself......books give me access to a continuous and reciprocating discussion, and the awareness of lots of things all going on simultaneously... I think I dissolved the books I needed and no doubt I still carry them (in solution) within me" (1987).

Rethinking Language and Learning

Please note: This post has been prepared for the 'The Learning Network' sponsored by Richard C. Owen Publishers to promote professional development. I will lead a discussion based on the post with TLN on the 29th June to 1st July. You can find out more about it and register HERE. Regular readers of the blog can also comment in the normal way.

Language and learning were frequently spoken of together in the 1970s, but today if you read many publications on language and literacy and consider major programs at literacy conferences, it is rare. Instead, you are more likely to hear literacy experts talk about multiliteracies, digital literacy or digital literacy across the curriculum.  I find this worrying. Why? Because the shift in terms reflects a loss of understanding that what schools do ultimately is to provide students with the necessary tools for learning and offer them varied opportunities to use them.  It also seriously underestimates the role of language in learning. The following quote from the report 'Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum' (published by Futurelab) will help to illustrate what I mean:

Digital literacy is the skills, knowledge and understanding that enables critical, creative, discerning and safe practices when engaging with digital technologies in all areas of life. Some people associate digital literacy simply with the functional skills of being able to use a computer or particular software package effectively.  But digital literacy is about much more than having access to or being able to use a computer. It’s about collaborating, staying safe and communicating effectively. It’s about cultural and social awareness and understanding, and it’s about being creative... (it's) about knowing when and why digital technologies are appropriate and helpful to the task at hand and when they are not.

While the sentiments expressed in relation to digital literacy are worthwhile, 'learning' isn't mentioned once. While learning is implied in the statement, technology is central, not learning and the quest for knowledge. The report speaks of "engaging with digital technologies" not learning. As well, when knowledge and understanding are mentioned, it is in relation to technology, not learning. And while the use of digital literacy for "tasks" and "communication" is noted, learning about the world is not the focus.

The same document represents 'digital literacy' diagrammatically as depicted below. Note that it is digital literacy that is represented centrally with all else supporting or related to it. Once again, 'learning' isn't mentioned, and while 'information' and 'communication' do appear, 'knowledge' does not.

The way the report positions digital literacy is even more surprising when you consider that one of the aims of 'Futurelab' is to transform teaching and learning, "...making it more relevant and engaging to 21st century learners through the use of innovative practice and technology."

We need to reposition learning at the centre of the curriculum, not as something that is peripheral, or a by product of skills instruction in any area (including digital literacy), but the very focus of our teaching.

Three Elders whose work can help us shift the focus

The above report should offer a warning of the need to avoid the 'tool' becoming the end or focus of learning. Instead, we need to keep in mind that keyboards and the Internet are simply the means for wider learning and the acquisition of, or construction of knowledge. While the UK report offers much insight into the use of the Internet and digital forms of literacy, it offers little about learning and how language and literacy in all their forms are essential for learning. It seems that many today have forgotten the wisdom of our elders. In the 1970s as a Curriculum Consultant I drew on the classic James Moffet work Teaching the Universe of Discourse (1968) that helpfully defined English as:

• language (knowledge and manipulation of usage, vocabulary, structure, style),
• in use (skill in reading, writing, listening, speaking),
• in context (of literature, media, personal expression and everyday communication).

What Moffet's work did was to stress that language always has purpose, audience and modality and that it is always situated. There are skills to be learned but they serve something else - learning! 

In the 1970s Michael Halliday's timeless work Learning how to mean: Explorations in the development of language (1975) stressed that a quest for meaning is central as we:

• learn language (we learn language as we interact with others and encounter our world),
• learn through language (we use language to build up a picture of the world in which we live), and
• learn about language (we understand the nature and functions of language).

One of the many useful insights from Halliday's work was his reminder that the meanings we express in and through language (“content”), cannot be separated from the words used to encode them. The artificial curriculum separation into English where language is taught, and subjects like science and maths where 'content' is taught, is unhelpful (even if practical and perhaps necessary up to a point). Halliday's work supported the instincts of many good teachers that integrated approaches and frequent varied opportunities for interaction are critical pathways to learning.

But it was Douglas Barnes in From Communication to Curriculum (1976) who pulled together language, learning and pedagogy. He stressed that it is learning that must always be at the centre of the curriculum.  He also reminded us that if language (including of course literacy) was defined narrowly as a means to transmit knowledge or information, then learning would become simply the replication of other people's knowledge and information.  Instead, he argued for what he called an 'Interpretation' model as opposed to a 'Transmission' model of teaching and learning. Each broad category (which he was quick to point out are somewhat idealised and never applied in pure forms), could be differentiated based on how the teacher viewed knowledge, what the teacher valued in the students, the way they viewed their role, and how student participation was evaluated.  An 'Interpretation' teacher:

• believes that knowledge exists in the knower's ability to organise thought and action,
• values the learner's commitment to interpreting reality,
• perceives the teacher's task as setting up dialogue in which learners can reshape knowledge through interaction with others, and
• perceives the learner as already possessing systematic and relevant knowledge and the means to reshape it.

Hence, Barnes argued for the establishment of classroom contexts that offered students opportunities to learn as they looked always for the relationship between new and existing knowledge. Language for Barnes was a vehicle for learning that required teachers to think carefully about how classrooms and teaching and learning activities were structured.

There isn't time to consider Vygotsky, Bruner, Briton, Rosen, Freire, Cazden, Bernstein, Cook-Gumperz, Harste, Ken and Yetta Goodman, Cambourne, Margaret Meek and others, but all have wisdom to offer on the relationship of learning to language and curriculum; perhaps in another post. Or perhaps via the TLN discussion.

Reflecting on the above

My recent post on handwriting (HERE) and this current post, both in their own way, pose a similar question: how can we maintain a right relationship between language and learning?  Crayons like keyboards are examples of technology (remember that technology can be defined as the use and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or products) that can be used to learn and deepen our understanding and knowledge of many things. In my handwriting post I argued that we have neglected the use of a simple form of technology, failing to see its role as a tool for learning.  In this post, I warn against the dangers of a blindly embracing technology. It is important to understand the potential, limitations and dangers of all forms of technology.  Technology is good if used well; servants to learning and useful for life.

Some questions to ponder:

• What does a curriculum look like that manages to locate learning at the centre of the literacy curriculum in elementary or primary schools?
• What might a secondary school curriculum look like that doesn't artificially separate learning language, learning through language and learning about language?
• How do we harness the richness of new media and digital literacy without shifting the focus from meaning and learning to simply the celebration and use of the tool?
• What place do textual forms like narrative play in this age of new communication technology, media and digital literacy?

I look forward to hearing from members of the TLN network or from other regular readers of this blog. 

Related posts and references

The following posts are some of those on this blog that have some relevance to the topic of the current post.

'Handwriting: The servant of language, learning and development' (HERE)
'A search for meaning: The heart of literacy' (HERE)
'Children as bloggers' (HERE)
'Improving Comprehension: Sketch to Stretch' (HERE)
'Firsthand experience and literacy learning' (HERE)
'Making history come alive with literature' (HERE)
'Reading to learn: Using text sets' (HERE)
'Improving comprehension series' (HERE)
'The power of literature series' (HERE)
'Online reading is different' (HERE)

References cited above

Barnes, D. (1976). From communication to curriculum. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1975) Learning how to mean: Explorations in the development of language. London: Edward Arnold.
Moffett, J. (1968). Teaching the universe of discourse. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.