It always concerned me that Amazon had such a monopoly on ebooks. However, my customer satisfaction since purchasing my first kindle in 2009, compared with the obvious inferiority of other e-readers, has been high. […]
While school traditionally separates art and science, theory, and practice, such divisions are artificial. The real world just doesn’t work that way. Architects are artists. Craftsmen deal in aesthetics, tradition […]
“The Red Room Company works in partnership with schools, teachers and poets to put the playfulness back into poetry. One school which has particularly embraced creativity through these projects is […]
My Year 10 English class had a really positive experiencing ‘skyping’ with Sarah Vaughan who is a “Director, Developer and Platform Evangelist at Microsoft Australia”. The group is comprised of boys who […]
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favorite"Wanderings of a Spiritualist" turns up in antique bookshops…
Thanks for this interesting comment, Mark. I will check out…
A lovely, interesting article Darcy, and I remember enjoying…
What a great and reflective read that was Darcy. As someone…
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Great! Hope you don’t mind if I send it on!
This took me ages to make so someone had better get some use – send it on! 🙂
Great effort Darcy. A really useful video for all of those schools facing the onslaught of a 1:1 environment with the digital revolution that’s coming their way. I’m sure many will find this very handy for use in a staff meeting.
Good collection mate, well done.
I have to say that some of it is a bit cheesy eg. things like ‘teaching is dead, long live learning’ contextual nonsense that gets peddled around unreflectively just because some edu A-lister uttered it.
For my 20c, I am getting a little tired of the flowery use of ‘collaboration, connection, creativity etc lingo. You know that some of two world’s smartest, most creative and connected people collaboratively used the cutting edge technology to … make a nuclear bomb?
(Use of) tech must always be tempered with a question – who benefits (loses out)? Tech ain’t a panacea, nothing is.
Kids (will) like and value school if it offers something special, something they can’t necessarily do at home or other places or with someone else. Technology is nothing terribly special (to most of them, not all) nor it should be, we should sometimes get off our ed-tech high horse 🙂
But what is special are the stories, the wonder, clever interpretations of the world beyond the kids’ experiences that good teachers have provided since the cave times (and they used the latest technology too – chalk or a book was once called a fad too and resisted!)
That is where clever use of technology helps the most (plus the potential of tech to be a great social leveller).
Let’s not fall for ‘technolust’ per se. It is not fair to ‘dump’ tech on teachers. It is not fair of teachers to ignore tech either – it ain’t a ‘fad’ going away any time soon.
Showing your staff that ‘teaching is dead’ probably isn’t going to do as much as the question ‘what can technology do for me and my students?’
Capture their imagination then ask them to have the best interest of the kids they teach in mind when deciding whether to use tech or not – as a parent of a child with future ahead of them perhaps.
Scuse the ramble, hope I make sense 🙂
Cheers & good job!
Tomaz
Thanks Simon, Jenny and Tomaz.
I think my purpose behind making this slideshow video of tweets from my PLN was to get some reflection and thinking going. My blog has had more hits in the last 36 hours than I would usually have in a month.
We have a need to think about the shock of the (not so) new and for some, the comment you didn’t like Tomaz will resound. It does with me. Also, the reality is that most teachers have not heard much pithy comment from an ‘edu A-lister’. ;O)
Good stuff; I love the music btw!
I have taken an interest in the 1:1 method of late and the development of 1:1 in your school… What is really important is to focus on a vision of what you want, then develop requirements against this vision….My thoughts are that once this process is completed, then and only then do you talk about technology product to determine the best way forward….To talk product up front is a recipe for disaster folks…1:1 is not all about technology choice…but the right choice of technology for your particular vision outcomes….make sure it is vision first…technology second in the process…
You need to consider current investment in technology…look at the gaps..then develop a tech plan in both a tactical and strategic sense….and also take into account skillset of your staff..costs of retraining and ongoing costs of support functions…both for at school and potentially at home too….
lots more I could talk about but do not want to bore you all…
Of course..in saying all this…budget is a nice thing to have too.
Cheers…