Twitter, Mobile Phones and Mark Pesce

…in the last six months, a lot of people in Australia have discovered Twitter – particularly those folks who, like myself, are interested in what’s up-and-coming on the Web. Nearly all of those folks use Twitter these days, and most of them follow one another. I quickly got swept up into this madness, and am […]

#Review #FlipTheSystemOz

“…flipping the system is about changing education from the ground up by allowing teachers to take the lead as a trusted and meaningful part of global education conversations.” Flip The System Australia: What Matters in Education edited by Deborah M. Netolicky, Jon Andrews and Cameron Paterson situates Australian education policy, research and practice within the context of […]

Shared fictions

‘Human power depends on mass cooperation, mass cooperation depends on manufacturing mass identities – and all mass identities are based on fictional stories, not on scientific facts or even on economic necessities.’ ‘When you give up all the fictional stories, you can observe reality with far greater clarity than before, and if you really know […]

A Wider World View: India-Australia Exchange

Cultural exchange is a very important value for our school. “A Wider World View @DHS” is a broad program encouraging and nurturing intercultural understanding, school exchanges and online connectivity, using tools like Adobe Connect. Our most recent guests from India – Raghav, Parth, Aryan, Vasudha, Anjali, Vritika, Aishwarya, Miss Tanu and Miss Kajal – greatly […]

Building the Windmill (or knocking it down again?)

“…the animals toiled harder than ever, thinking it well worth while to plod to and fro all day with blocks of stone if by doing so they could raise the walls another foot. Boxer would even come out at nights and work for an hour or two on his own by the light of the […]

Parents and Education in NSW

Recently I overheard a conversation between parents in a bookshop. They were struggling to understand NAPLAN, “minimum standards” and what a “band 8” actually meant in the context of the Higher School Certificate. Neither were able to help each other. Announced by former education minister Adrian Piccoli in 2016, the policy required Year 9 students […]

MyData: Personalising the Curriculum

Recently I presented DNA: Personalising the Curriculum at the WHAT IF? Embracing complexity through curriculum conference which has reinvigorated my belief that we need to make some profoundly important changes to our approach to educating young people about their “personal data”. I asked the question: what if school empowered students to understand & use personal data? Students should be well-educated about […]

‘The Cult of Hattie’: ‘wilful blindness’?

“There is a science to learning and we are finding out more and more about what works best to support the learning processes that make a difference for your learners.“ Advertising for a Visible Learning symposium at the Australian Council for Educational Leadership (ACEL) website “Assisting practising teachers to maximise their impact on student learning […]

Reflections: Occasional Papers #AI #education #21stcenturyskills #NSWDoE

“As part of the Education for a Changing World project, the NSW Department of Education has established the Education: Future Frontiers Occasional Paper Series. The series will bring together essays commissioned by the department from distinguished Australian and international authors to stimulate debate and discussion about Artificial Intelligence (AI), education and 21st century skill needs.” […]

Drawing #mindset #grit #resilience #flow #learning

I cannot draw. This has been my mindset since about 8 years of age. Aged 48, I now understand how it came to be that “I cannot draw” and how this mindset (and inability) developed. So, why can’t I draw? More importantly, how can I do something about it? In second class my friend was […]

Asia Education Foundation: Australia-India #BridgeProject

Sonia Chhabra, Headmistress at Bal Bharati Public School in New Delhi, is my exchange partner and made her home an open, warm and friendly place for me to live happily these last two weeks. Her husband Rohit and two sons, Siddant and Shaurya, are intelligent, creative men who shared their knowledge and ideas about life […]

The KFC Fix

“The 2016 results show reading scores have increased by 0.4 per cent since 2013, writing scores have declined by 0.2 per cent and numeracy scores have risen by 1.26 per cent. Over the same time period, federal school funding has increased by 23.7 per cent.”   Federal Minister for Education, 2016             […]

In the bag & pocketses #techtools #edutech #mobile

Thinking back over the last five years about tech tools that have been in my bag or pocket there are some proven stayers and some other, more recent essentials that make my life connected, pleasant and productive.* Hardware My MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 comes most places with me […]

The BOSTES Review

The Review of BOSTES (Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW) commissioned by the NSW Minister for Education in March 2016 has been released. Mr Piccoli has accepted all of the recommendations. This will result in a name change with BOSTES becoming the NSW Education Standards Authority or, as the report details, “the Authority“. An article […]

A big task!

Greg Whitby is the only very senior educationalist that I know in NSW who regularly uses social media and blogging to highlight his educational beliefs and values. Greg has blogged, tweeted and generally participated in online discussions for as long as social media has been a concept. He is enthusiastic about technology or rather, how […]

Nurturing Democracy: Whitlam Forum

The experience of an educational exchange to Denmark in 2011 continues to provide professional direction about what’s important in the life of a school. During my time at Viborg Katedralskole I saw how democratic values were nourished by the culture of the school and of the nation. Denmark is regularly listed as the happiest and […]

NSW Premier’s Teacher Scholarship Study Tour: San Francisco #4

San Francisco is a wonderful city to explore with many homes and buildings having memorable architecture.  Tacy Trowbridge hosted my visit to Adobe in San Francisco (located in an amazing building). Tacy is Head of Adobe’s Education Programs and I had the privilege of meeting with her team including Johnson Fung and Terry Fortescue. Tacy, formerly an English and […]

NSW Premier’s Teacher Scholarship Study Tour: Washington #3

“The Genographic Project is an ambitious attempt to answer fundamental questions about where we originated and how we came to populate the Earth. Through your participation, you can play an active role in this historic endeavour.” The National Geographic Society is headquartered in Washington. The Society believes in the power of science, exploration and storytelling […]

NSW Premier’s Teacher Scholarship Study Tour: New York #2

“From its inception, a PDS education was founded on relationships and learning by doing; it valued play as creative cognitive growth and working together as a means of effective progress and the promotion of democratic values. It was about openness to opportunity and growth rather than right answers and closed minds.” Visiting schools is always […]

Mobile Storytelling and Documentary Filmmaking

Documentary Australia Foundation (DAF) is Australia’s only independent, non-profit initiative bringing philanthropists and filmmakers together to create social change. Storytelling has an undeniable power to engage empathy, raise awareness, and inspire action in social change initiatives, and as such commands a growing interest from the philanthropic sector. By forging new pathways to audiences through collaborations […]

1 2 13