Cloud computing, according to the Macquarie Dictionary Online, is ‘The provision of computer applications over the internet as a service to users of a particular site, the application being freely available for modification and adaption to the user’s needs without the need for greater expertise on their part.’

As a teacher, there’s a good chance you’ve had issues with the school network or wanted your students to do work from home rather than only at school. One way to do that is through the use of cloud-based applications. They can make your life as a teacher much easier and at the same time
enthuse students through the use of emerging learning technologies.

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Martin Pluss’ Blog

Many years involvement in educational leadership prompted Duignan to research the concept of authenticity in leadership – and how ethical leadership can be attained. Working from the premise that education is a value based process, its purpose he says is not simply to teach maths and science and such, but to form the person and equip them to be better human beings. “The biggest challenge of all is to ensure schools and teachers and educators do that – basically they don’t end up with a group of young people who aren’t transformed in any way as human beings and who only go out able to regurgitate facts and knowledge”. The key to the transformation rests with the leader – ask any student about who was their best teacher and why, and the response reflects not technical ability, but the esoteric capacity for inspiration. “Students will always mention two areas – one is giving them self belief, and the other is the confidence to go out and engage with others in the world, the big bad world out there.”

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Authentic leadership is emerging as an alternative perspective on leadership in different organisational settings including education (Bhindi & Duignan, 1997). The authors will draw upon the existent research and commentary on authentic leadership and its relevance to leaders engaged in human service organisations, especially in the field of Education. Notions of authentic leadership are to be found in the disciplines of Nursing, Human Resources and Business and Organisational Development. However, missing/unacknowledged dimensions of the current leadership literature will also be identified with respect to authenticity. For example often the literature is about authentic leadership from the perspectives of leaders themselves, rather than from the perspectives of the ‘followers’. A rationale for this research project is presented outlining the need for empirical research from the viewpoints of practitioner-educators (teachers) as ‘followers’ of authentic leaders. The proposed research methodology is outlined which includes a blend of survey data and focus groups, which the researchers intend to map teacher (i.e. ‘follower’) perceptions of authentic leaders. Specifically, we want to determine the dynamics needed to promote authentic rather than ‘contrived collegiality’ (Hargreaves, 1994). It is contended that authentic leaders will empower communities of learners through the creation of vibrant, safe, fulfilling schools.

Full article : http://www.aare.edu.au/08pap/smi08816.pdf

I’m paid to be impatient. In a role like Teaching & Learning Technologies Coordinator, I’m impatient for staff to pick up new pedagogy and to utilise the teaching and learning opportunities that our school’s technology can provide. I’m impatient for change – for the school to become a better place, one that services students better, one that is more rewarding and meaningful for staff to work at and where students graduate with a base of skills, knowledge and dispositions to make their own way in our society and be well placed to take up whatever opportunities open up.

Source – Read more: http://gwegner.edublogs.org/2010/08/14/too-much-innovation-can-be-a-liability-to-the-system

Never before have Americans had greater access to information about school quality. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), all school districts are required to distribute annual report cards detailing student achievement levels at each of their schools. Local newspapers frequently cover the release of state test results, emphasizing the relative standing of their community’s schools. Meanwhile, new organizations like GreatSchools and SchoolMatters aggregate this information and make it readily available to parents online.

Source – read more: http://educationnext.org/grading-schools/

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by Mark Pesce.

On Friday evening, under a full moon, I lit a candle, gathered my thoughts in a moment of silence, and clicked on the big blue button. It felt odd – and made me giddy, perhaps a bit lightheaded. I crossed over, entering a digital bardo, becoming a ghost…. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2915364.htm

There has been some research attention given recently to the differences between reading printed texts and reading online texts. This topic has come into focus even more so with the advent of netbooks, ereaders and portable devices on the market. However, there appears to be an implied assumption that transference of reading skill from the printed mode to the digital mode happens intuitively. Terje Hillesund, from the University of Stravanger in Norway, has reported on a really important research study about how readers handle books, the Web and electronic paper. The study, Digital reading spaces: How expert readers handle books, the Web and electronic paper concludes that sustainable reading of long-form text may require some adjustments to the way that text is made available and that different skills may be required. Hillesund (2010) reports that ‘multimodal reading is not primarily a continuous or discontinuous reading of verbal text, but rather composite reading in which attention jumps back and forth between illustrations and text’ and that multimodal reading texts do require a knowledge of visual grammar.

In Australia, the draft English K-10 national curriculum document includes the use of multimodal text. This research by Hillesund expands on the use of multimodal text in education and may provide some pointers for educators to consider when planning multimodal text for learners. The research report can be accessed in the peer reviewed online internet journal First Monday.

Today’s research on DERN is a slight departure from previously reported research in that the new K-12 Horizon Report is more of an ‘educated-guess’ report than a research report but very valuable none-the-less. The recently released Horizon Report: 2010 K-12 Edition completed in partnership wiith the influential Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) in Washington focusses on the latent take up of ‘cloud computing’ and ‘collaborative environments’ both of which were included in the 2009 K-12 report. Although the report talks about ‘cloud computing’ the actual take-up in education is more about the use of software as a service, that is, the use of remote applications rather than establishing virtual servers in the ‘cloud’. However, the inclusion of both cloud computing and collaboration over two years does indicate the interest in education of these uses of ICT. Games based education uses of ICT and different interface devices are some time away, suggests the report, although augmented reality (geo-location and video) makes its first appearance in the K-12 Edition.

This excellent report is very easy to read, full of relevant information and in many ways ground-breaking. The report will be invaluable to ICT leaders and for school planning. The report can be accessed at http://www.nmc.org/publications/2010-horizon-k12-report.

Abstract

There is a vast body of research confirming the important influence of the classroom teacher on student achievement (see Hattie, 2002, 2003, 2007; Mulford, 2006; Rowe, 2003).

A key issue then, is that of how the quality of teaching and learning within individual classrooms can be influenced and improved.

Based upon findings from a range of research projects investigating aspects of quality teaching, we believe that two key, related influences on classroom achievement are educational leadership and teachers’ professional learning. This paper concentrates mainly on the former (see Dinham, 2007b for more on the latter).

Educational leadership, like teaching and life generally, is heavily dependent upon relationships. There are two fundamental dimensions to relationships: responsiveness and demandingness (Baumrind, 1991).

This paper considers the two dimensions in the contexts of parenting, where these were first proposed, and then teaching and educational leadership, where we believe the typology has equally valid and valuable application.

A postscript considers how responsiveness and demandingness may have shaped and can explain educational change since the early 1960s.

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Download full article here – http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/177858.doc