It's a learners world: mapping a new landscape

This has once again been a holiday where professional development has been at the top of the list. These holidays I'm attending the Leaning Network" It's a learners world" conference. I'm feeling inspired once again and I think I'm going to give this blogging thing another go. I've just learned about mobile blogging via e-mail. Maybe this is the way that I can blog from anywhere any time.
So far during the conference I have enjoyed a number of speakers. Some I have seen before others I have not seen before. Over all there is an underlying message behind what every speak was saying. We have to change!
We have been used to teaching in a TTWWADI (That's the way we've always done it) kind of way. Not to say that every classroom in the country has been subjected to this way of thinking but we are still driven by our misconceptions of what teaching and learning should look like. Some of these misconceptions are based on how we were taught through our own classroom experience or the expectations around us. As Lee Crocket said this morning, "If we do not change the way we teach, then we prepare our kids not for their futures but for our past!" Can teachers really carry on this way?
The challenge I set myself is to question why I am doing what I'm doing. What is the purpose of the lesson I'm preparing? How will this lesson challenge, inspire and extend my students?
My focus for this term is to work with my new classroom set up and to use my new spaces to let go of some of the control I have over my students learning. I endeavour to start giving my students more responsibility for their own learning, so that they can start shaping their world.
I leave you with an image of my classroom. I used mosquito nets to create some spaces in my room.