I was just thinking about the title for this posting, before I get to even start writing the first in a series of reflections from my recent visit to the Municipal Pre-schools of Reggio Emila, Italy organised by the group, Reggio Children. I decided anyway that I had better date this study tour as I would love to visit again, and will work to make that happen!
The study tour left me with copious notes and many more questions and curiosities than I arrived with and new friends that I can contact to dialogue with as I wrestle to contextualise my learning to ECE in NZ, and to my role as an ICT facilitator.
Some first comments on the experience that I have just had at RE: I have been impressed and inspired and I thank all of the children, families and teachers for welcoming us so warmly and sharing so generously your work. I have been inspired in a way that is motivating, and I have many questions about my work and practice. The mix of speakers and centre visits has been great. While reading through some of the publications that I read a quote from a child in a centre who described his thoughts of the adults who descend on his centre during the study tour: I am sitting in the airport at Singapore and don’t have the book with me but it went something like this: We have a lot of foreign visitors come to visit us. They write lots and take a lot of photos. I think they are like spies coming to watch us. This made me appreciate even more the privilege it has been to visit some of the centres with children and families present going about their daily routines.
Some of the aspects of the Infant Toddler Centres and Pre-schools of RE that impressed me the most were the depth of the learning through progettzione; the length of time the children are engaged in the progettzione; the collaboration of the teachers, pedagogisters and artelieristers on a regular ongoing basis; the organization of the classrooms so that the children are together as a class group with the same teachers all year; the documentation and the purposes that the different forms serve; the natural inclusion of ICT’s as tools when appropriate.
Some ways that I can create a dialogue between the pedagogical experience of RE and the context in which I am working now are:
*the importance of action research as professional development for teachers
*the authentic way that ICT’s are integrated throughout all aspects of the curriculum at RE and are used in authentic ways as appropriate
*the focus on the individual in NZ and the developmental lens that some teachers and parents and managers place on assessment, often ignoring the group of children involved in an experience. I will continue dialogue around the group, where individual subjectivities in the group context may be a more appropriate way of surfacing learning
*the teachers abilities to listen to children and to respond so sensitively, and to capture this in documentation
*the range of documentation for different purposes
There will be many more as I revisit my notes and audio recordings……
6 months ago
As I sat in bed this Easter weekend checking my RSS feeds as you do, and emailing off links to fellow teachers who might find these relevant to their ICT research projects, it suddenly occured to me that they might actually be having a holiday this holiday weekend!!
Then I watched this TED video by Renny Gleeson about the impact that technologies are having on our lives. He talks about the developing “culture of availability”, leading to the “expectation of availability” and therefore an “obligation of availability”. What does this mean for the teachers who are all now using laptops and are creating a lot of their documentation at home?
I am not sure whether this is a good or bad thing. As with all change, there is compromise. I certainly don’t expect the teachers to answer my email over their Easter break.
Gleeson’s talk is just 3 mnutes and is a funny look at ways that we manage to keep in touch with moblie phones. He also cautions that we ensure that the technologies that are being developed work to make us more human, and enrich our communication.
7 months ago
Last night I attended an evening with Per Bernemyr (organised by Reggio Provocations) who started the Swedish Reggio Institute in 1992 and is a internationally recognised consultant with years of experience working alongside pedagogista from Reggio Emilia.
I was well provoked by him, and enjoyed the dialogue immensely. A couple of things from my notes that I wanted to share:
“Teachers and children need many theories to understand what they see….this means that you only see what you have theories to see. Theories act as receivers, to enable us to make sense of an experience.” The more theories we have then to draw on, the richer we are in terms of making meaning, and the more possibilities for interpretation.
The teachers role in this is to listen to the children, to reflect together during and after an encounter to conceptualise what it is that they have done with the children; to make it possible for the children to share their theories together and to document the dialogue between the children; to provide a climate or environment which increases the possibilities for an investigation/project; to be open to many possibilities - not to have pre-conceived ideas;
I amstill processing this all, but it was clear in some instances the ICT used to document a project or during an investigation as a research tool, can close down the possibilities for children and channel the investigation in a certain way. Google as a research tool can be relied on to supply answers - often the scientific answers - and can block the rich expression of the children’s theories. Food for thought.
7 months ago
“when you’re presenting, take charge of what your audience remembers”
Olivia Mitchell
Another blog about presenting, this one with heaps of great tips and ideas - concise and easy to read. Olivia has made available a free ebook which you can download.
9 months ago
While planning the visits that I will make with teachers over the next term to work on their ECE ICT research projects, I have been grappling with the content of our face to face meetings, and wondering what we can achieve using the technology we have available, to make these meetings as productive as possible. Jeff Utecht has also been thinking about this and has a couple of posts on his blog, ‘The thinking Stick’.….“working face to face is valuable when we are put in a situation that allows use to create, produce, or solve a problem. Meeting for meetings sake can be done on the web, and we can meet on the web to produce something or solve a problem, but there is a different aura that happens when you are in the physical presence of those you are working with”.
My note to self: maximise the use of the time that I am meeting face to face with teachers and children, so that the creative thinking and synergy can happen. This means utilising available technology such as skype, google docs, email, chat, to take care of the housekeeping type things that can take up too much of the visit time.
9 months ago
