BROADENING LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES:
Expanded and instant access to “point and touch” digital technologies and the need to be connected to others in both the virtual and the physical worlds, are expanding the interest and capacity to offer broadened learning opportunities. How will Albertans address issues such as core learnings, commodification of content and student assessment as these opportunities unfold?
INSPIRING EDUCATION:
With the June, 2010, release of Inspiring Action: A Dialogue with Albertans, education partners are faced an opportunity for informed transformation that will likely not present itself again in the foreseeable future – one that offers Albertans to be one of the leading jurisdictions in the world in terms of student learning and well-being. Sewn together, these choices will fundamentally pose a complex series of design challenges: bringing together the structures, moral purposes and identities of education partners in new ways that will improve learning for students. However, chewing at the edges of these opportunities are commercial interests focussed on privatizing curriculum development and assessment practices, not to mention a myriad of technology vendors who have continue to offer so-called ‘technology solutions’ that drain scarce resources away from classrooms. In fact a recently completed study of the digital reporting tools and software packages currently in use across the province indicates considerable issues expressed by teachers with little effort to determine the efficacy of the millions of dollars committed to these software providers.
These distractions are not unique to Alberta – Ontario is currently witnessing the increasing and unsustainable commitment to prop-up provincial data gathering data capacity in an attempt to provide the public with a false sense of accountability and assurance that the system is working. “System-level reform” remains the policy mantra in Ontario while the research suggests that building lateral capacity among schools and promoting local innovation ought to be the focus.
As we move into the next few months of operationalizing Inspiring Action, a series of initiatives reinforce the conclusion that success will hinge on the ability of education partners, including the government, to agree that they actually trust in the integrity of communities to take ownership and responsibility for the transformation of their schools and to support the teaching professionals who provide learning opportunities for students.
