Dry Run Middle Schooling Presentation

Tonight, we had a runthrough with our staff of our planned presentation for the Third International Middle Years of Schooling Conference which highlights the use of IWB's with our Middle Years Learning Unit (common acronym = MYLU) at our school. Being really busy with reports meant that we weren't really ready for the full deal so we tentatively called it a dry run and walked the staff through our plans. I had pulled together the majority of our presentation into a flipchart and we showed it off on the ACTIVboard in the Science Room. We went through our planned sequence as outlined on our presentation wiki. The use of a wiki has been a great way to showcase everything that we've used along the way - profiles of the teachers, what was covered during the presentation and links to all of the research and resources used. I know the MYLU teachers have been getting up close and personal with wikis throughout this term so it was good to fill our other staff members in on what a wiki is and how it can be used. We ran through a history of how the MYLU came to be.

We ran through the theory behind our move to an IWB program - explaining the now familiar "digital native" and "digital immigrant" metaphor that has been so useful in explaining the differences in how today's students engage and learn. We explained Marc Prensky's four stages of Technology Implementation and showed some examples of these stages in action. The presentation prompted lots of discussion about how teachers were starting to effectively use the IWB as a tool and I think it opened the eyes of the teachers about to get their new boards next term and hopefully get them looking beyond just how to operate the technology. And we have some valuable feedback about how the whole presentation hangs together and how some areas could be tightened up. All bodes well for the real thing in August at the Adelaide Convention Centre.