Today - a little town in central Switzerland, Tomorrow - Hong Kong

Today I'm working in an international school in central Switzerland based in a small town that I'd never even heard of two years ago, but that has quite a large international school of over 1,000 students.  Today I'm an IT teacher here, in fact I'm the ICTL (information and communication for teaching and learning) team leader.  I work with the teachers on two of our campuses to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Tomorrow I'm going to Hong Kong.  In the summer I received an invitation to be part of a team of 12 educators from around the world (6 from Asia, 3 from Europe, Africa and the Middle East and 3 from the USA) to develop a document for the IB to clarify the role of ICT in the PYP.

Currently the Making the PYP Happen document doesn't contain many guidelines about how ICT should be used.  It talks about the enhancement of learning (whereas I think it should refer to the transformation of learning) and that ICT should support the students in their inquiries and in developing their conceptual understanding.  It mentions that ICT is a tool for learning, not an additional subject area.  In the whole 142 page document there are only 5 paragraphs devoted to the role of ICT - and now it is time to make some changes!  We need to take on board the implications of ICT integration for schools, administrators, teachers, students and parents.  We need to work out what things should have decreased emphasis, for example being lab based or relying on a specialist teacher, and what things need to be increased in emphasis, for example using ICT to develop higher order thinking skills, problem solving and collaboration.

This is a wonderful opportunity to really work on a document that will make a difference and I'm honoured and excited to be a part of this team.

Photo Credit:  Hidden Colours by Spettacolopuro