My partner and I live with our two daughters in sunny Kiama, NSW, Australia.
I am a photographer, blogger and ‘learning professional’ working as a deputy principal for the NSW Department of Education and Communities, a large Public Education system with many enthusiastic and energetic advocates for changing paradigms to support children and communities to flourish. I also am employed by the University of Wollongong to teach pre-service teachers English method.
We spent the 2011 European summer living in Denmark on exchange with Carsten Søndergaard. It was great learning more about Danish perspectives on life and schooling. This was a fantastic opportunity on a number of levels. I presented to the 2011 Deputy Principals’ conference, streamed live from Denmark about my experiences at the school, established in 1060.
During the 2010 September-October holidays, I was lucky enough to have a 10-day TEV exchange to Shanghai. My PLN assisted with ideas which you can see here and wrote about my experiences here.
Collaborating with colleagues and sharing formally and informally is a high priority and I enjoy presenting at conferences. My articles and teaching units have been published in a number of DET curriculum publications, SCAN, mETAphor and increasingly, online at a range of sites. EQ published my article on social media. I started using blogs with my classes in 2004 and started publishing articles about using (we)blogs with classes in 2005. My latest published article (August 2011) is in SCAN and my blog post, the ‘The Future is Here‘, was featured at the IBM 100th anniversary website as ‘hear from the experts’. During 2012 I wrote for the new ABC Splash education portal and for Australian Teacher Magazine.
Helping teachers and educational leaders develop Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) has been an area of interest for sometime now. If educators are able to use blended learning concepts to facilitate their own professional development it is more likely students will benefit. During recent years I have presented at many conferences for principals, deputy principals, English teachers, counsellors, technology enthusiasts and administrators on practical ways to collaborate, co-operate and use digital technologies to connect. I was awarded a fellowship by the NSW Deputy Principals’ Association to improve online communications in 2010 and have established a Deputy Principals Online blog , twitter account and 2010 conference ning to assist with this matter.
Schools like mine now have wireless connectivity and laptops in a growing number of classrooms. This means that staff will need to facilitate students developing their own Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) to achieve course outcomes and maintain relevance. You can read a brief online article, about preparing for 1:1, that was adapted from my blog posts.
Assisting students to explore the benefits of participatory democracy, using Web 2.0 tools, to make the Student Representative Council (SRC) more influential, has been an important focus in 2009. The project has been written about here.
I have been active for a number of years in the NSW English Teachers’ Association www.englishteacher.com.au, especially in my role as Manager of the Web & Technology Committee and was awarded a Professional Teachers’ Council Outstanding Professional Services Award in 2006. The ETA annual conferences now have a backchannel using twitter and a ning. This has been very successful in alerting delegates to the potential of web 2.0 for enhancing collegiality and teacher professional learning. I had early professional involvement with the innovative PLANE project.
Digital photography is my passion. I am a keen user of Flickr and my attempts to engage the local community with this great tool have been recognised in parliament by our federal member. Australian Geographic has featured one of my shots as ‘Photo of the Week‘ at their website. Here are my thoughts about learning photography and HDR. I have established a Facebook page and a blog that I hope you share.
I established my first of many blogs in 2004. Here is a 2011 article in Australian Teacher magazine about my blogging (page 37). Increasingly, this blog, Google+ and twitter are my main collaborative online tools, along with my iPhone, Skype, Google Reader, Google Docs and Diigo. I am particularly interested in how the mainstream media, just a few short years ago, started using Web 2.0 too.
Feel free to contact me by commenting at this page, via twitter, Skype (Darcy1968) or email: [email protected]
33 Comments
While searching for this blog using Google I effectively did an archaelogical dig, uncovering my LiveJournal account from 2002. Darthmoore never really took off but my interest in all thing internet has continued. Does anyone still use ICQ? Here’s my bio from those days:
‘I am almost 33 and have a mortgage. Time does strange things to identity and ‘I’ am an amalgam of many people. However, I will stick to chronological and geographical data for now. I was born in the August of 1968 at Mona Vale Hospital in Sydney. I lived in Tamworth for the next six years before departing country NSW for the coast. Old Bar is located four hours north of Sydney and is a great place to surf – although I never mastered this most zen-like of sports. I attended university in Newcastle, then moved to Wagga Wagga to commence a teaching ‘career’. Escaped that and travelled extensively for a couple of years, mostly in India and the UK. Lived in London for a year and then returned to Australia to follow my vocation – as an educator. My partner and I have just moved to the Blue Mountains and have a fine, tranquil , wooded valley home. Life is good…’
An to update: now I am almost 40, still have a mortgage and two daughters aged 2 & 4. We reside on the South Coast in Kiama and Education is still central to my daily existence.
Life is even better…
hee hee, yes, I still use my ICQ account – but I use it through ‘pidgin’, which lets me put all my ICQ, MSN, AOL contacts together in one place.
Hello Darcy,
Just read your email.
Haven’t used ICQ for years. Also used to use something called ‘IRC’…which at the time was the best thing since sliced bread.
My 15 year old daughter is now trying to introduce me to the ‘joys’ of MySpace and Facebook; she says resistance is futile.
Interesting to read the northern beaches connection. I hail from that area, both my kids having been born at Mona Vale Hospital. I’m now living and teaching in beautiful Port Macquarie; couldn’t be too far away from the beach!
I envisage the audiences of this blog to be educators, teachers (particulary English teachers) and those with a particular interest in professional development and technological innovation. I was hoping that ‘thinkers’ about new media and culture may also participate.
Old Bar, I still have strong links there today, my son races on the motorbike track out that way and I teach English and History at Great Lakes College. I am interested in integrating more web2.0 into my classes so thought I better find out what all this blodgging means.http://tsearl.edublogs.org/2008/07/11/will-ccp-be-better-than-past-iwb-use/
Darcy,
I was just having a quick look at your blog and noticed that you have a link to Ewen McIntosh in Scotland. Ewan wrote a great review about our beta site http://www.tutpup.com It’s entirely free.
We have quite a few international users but many of our schools are in the UK where it is now the summer holidays and so things have slowed down a bit. We are currently working on a few news games and a rewards/incentive system, most of which should be deployed by Sept.
If any of your classes or colleagues want too give it a try I would be interested in their feedback.
It’s nice to see so many great Australian education blogs, although I can’t see any from Wangaratta (VIC) where I went to school.
Cheers
Richard Taylor
Director of Play@ Tutpup
London
Hi Richard,
Thanks for posting. I will keep you informed the moment Wangaratta enters the blogosphere.
Cheers,
Darcy
Hi Darcy small token of appreciation for your help is awaiting you at http://tsearl.edublogs.org/2008/08/30/web20-is-real-people/
Having other DET NSW learners is reassuring.
PD was frankly scary last Monday, well for me anyway as a classroom teacher who may not know much, yet, its not my natural domain and others felt threatened. I’ll call next week and have a chat.
regards
Tony
DEAR Darcy ,
The Internet has transformed how we communicate with the public, but there are still many challenges in making information easy to find. Since you cover web 2.0 in Your Blog, I thought you might be interested in a study that my nonprofit published this summer about how people find information online. The study covers three groups: non-profit organizations and cities; web designers and firms; and the general public.
The study was fascinating on a number of levels, and I invite you to read the executive summary or download a PDF of the findings at http://www.idea.org/find-information.html .
The survey results sparked ideas about tools we could provide that might make finding information online easier. This fall, we will start beta testing a cool new new navigational tool. I don’t have your email, so if you are interested, you can sign up for our beta here: http://www.spicynodes.org/ or to stay abreast of our (very) occasional new projects, you can get our newsletter here: http://www.idea.org/newsletter.html
Thanks,
Michael
Disclaimer
The views expressed on this site are my own and do not represent the views of my employer.
Unfortunately!
Hey Darcy, just discovered your blog by looking up the tag “Kiama” in Technorati.
I also live in Kiama, have 3 daughters (3, 5 and 7) and 3 chooks! I’m assuming your daughters must now be 3 and 5, so we’ll probably cross paths one day at pre-school, school, extra-curricular stuff etc.
I find it really reassuring to see a local person who is this switched-on to both technology and education. Keep up the great work!
Hi Darcy, stumbled across your blog somehow when i was finding innovative ways of incorporating ICT/L4L/Web2.0 into my teaching practice now that the digital education revolution is here!
I will keep coming back here no doubt when looking for great ways to do new things.
Currently teaching English at Toronto High School and grew up in Taree (not far from Old Bar – when surfing there heaps as a kid) and also went to Newcastle Uni. Then went overseas to teach in the UK and travel.
Keep up the great work – this new age we’re living in is exciting and full of possibilities.
Hi Brendt,
Thanks for posting, small world and all that. Are you coming to the ETA conference later in the year? If so, maybe we can catch-up. I have several workshops to present but will be in attendance both days.
Cheers,
Darcy :O)
Keep the energy going darcy. I know you never sleep!
Thommo.
Why aren’t more teachers using Web 2 – this librarian and English teacher can tell you – DET bars the most user friendly ones! So – no twitter or facebook for me.
Yes I’m a teacher on a decent wage, but internet access is one more expense to eat into my miniscule funds. I understand entirely why my students don’t have home access. Given that most of my internet use is work-related, I prefer to do it after school at work. If people like me can’t access the media, we can’t use it. The DET isn’t listening to us – maybe they will listen to people like you.
I can’t even begin listing the number of resources I’ve recommended only to find them blocked the next time I go there (though getting into youtube and flickr now is great) or when a student tries to go there. This includes my lovingly constructed lessons about copyright and downloading – with global commons sites the kids can’t access at all (so they keep illegally downloading and I keep turning a blind eye and they learn nothign about the most basic lesson a high school librarian should be teaching)!
How inspiring and exciting to have come across you Darcy at this time in my life and career!
I’ve been an English/Esl/Humanities teacher for 20 years in Melbourne, including one year in Greece and I’ve recently increased my online presence as both a teacher, reader/reviewer, writer through social media and blogs. I’ve also begun to use web 2.0 tools in the classroom and find your blog a fantastic resource. I had ameeting with the principal today to get approval for a facebook class group page and to talk about what I’m doing in the classroom. He had no idea.
I’m looking forward to learning from you.
Hi Darcy
I may be teaching a secondary preservice teacher group about literacy across the curriculum at UOW next year and I would like to set your blog as recommended reading – are you OK with that?
best wishes
Deb
Of course, especially if you explain creative commons to them and how my blog is licensed ‘share and share alike’.
Ontario
The Lake District
Weymouth
Edinburgh
Phillip Island
Wanaka, New Zealand
Hi Darcy,
Just thought I’d leave a comment so you knew that I dropped by… 2010 has been such a huge year for me, especially with regard to the explosion of learning that is Yammer for DET! I have been convicted regarding the issues of teaching kids about establishing and maintaining their ‘digital footprint’ – for which you personally hold significant responsibility! So I have started websearching a few of the DET identities I have enjoyed “listening” to on Yammer and am learning LOTS about how you and they are maintaining their footprints! I am trying hard not to be overwhelmed! If 2010 was big… I suspect 2011 is going to be amazing! Thanks for holding such a large torch to lead the way!
Regards, Deb
Deb,
What a lovely comment to read at my blog as 2010, the insanely busy 2010, draws to a close. Best wishes for 2011 and may our journey continue as positively at our schools!
Darcy
Darcy,
Stumbled upon your blog after doing search on BlogEd in preparation for a job interview. Great to see you are still teaching since the old days at sunny Ingleburn High School. I also live on the south coast now and have 2 daughters. I am in the throws of persuing a Science teaacher position closer to home since moving from Ingleburn to Campbelltown Performing Arts High School four years ago. Love to know more about the effectiveness of using your Blog with the students in your classes
Cheers
Luke
Hello Luke,
Good to hear from you. I have found that this blog has been useful in a range of professional situations and I do show it to students. I am a DP and do not have many classes though. In the past, I have found blogs could for:
- motivating kids
- metacognitive strategies to assist with reflection
- student politics/SRC
- encouraging boys to write freely
and much more besides.
Cheers
@Darcy1968 :O)
Came across your blog when looking up ICTs in the classroom and 1:1 laptop usage . You have been doing some great work. I am Head of Visual Arts in a catholic school in Adelaide and we are presently integrating more technologies into our school . Alot of trialling and changes at present.
you’ve def achieved alot since THS.
Darcy, I´m astonished. I´ve got new point of view for teaching. Your blog is awesome, interesting and useful. I can speed days reading your articles,watching you videos and teaching publication just learning new ways how to teach through technology . There are several helpful resources where teachers can take advantages of your daily research and development to improve our teaching knowledge. Nowadays, We as a teachers have to be awared that we depends on technology “TIC” to get better results and create a new educational enviroment for our students. It´s great to share your blog, I realize there are many things to do…I look forward to hearing from you. Olga Torres. Greetings from Colombia.
Hi Darcy and fellow Educators
My name is Alex and I am a researcher for TV production company “Mindful Media” based in Sydney, Australia. We are currently producing a 3 part TV series called “Change your Brain” which follows host Todd Sampson on a journey around the world to improve his brain.
As part of the show, we are looking at optical illusions. I am writing today as I am desperately seeking help in trying to find an “Ames room” – also know as a “distorted room” – complete with furniture. This particular youtube clip is the kind of the thing I am after: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjmHofJ2da0
As education professionals, I thought you may have a good idea of where such a room is located.
The room can be based overseas, or in Australia. If you have any idea of where I can find a room like this, I would sincerely appreciate your help
Best wishes
Alex Howes
Researcher for Mindful Media
Email: [email protected]
Fascinating. I am checking this out now via Twitter and other contacts.
Many thanks Darcy, I really appreciate your help
Alex,
I expect credits with a link to my blog:
Many thanks Darcy, I really appreciate you taking the time to help. I have contacted each of these facilities. Fingers crossed they can help!
All the best
Hi Darcy,
Is there a free platform to use to display students’ text messages in the classroom?
I have researched wiffiti but they dont give you a number for students to text to unless you subscribe. Also I’ve read apparently it doesn’t work in Oz and or conditions apply???
Thanks
Louise Morgan
Try: http://cel.ly/education or http://www.polleverywhere.com/