The current October edition of National Geographic has an interesting article on the ‘teenage brain’. I do not usually buy this magazine but waiting for ferries in Hong Kong, and the incredibly inexpensive cover price compared with Australia, has led me to buy a couple recently for articles of ongoing interest. The New Science of the Teenage […]
My Twitter buddy @dimac4, otherwise known as Dianne McKenzie, kindly invited me to visit her school, Discovery College today. I love checking out schools and this was a good opportunity, while we are staying in Hong Kong, on our return from Europe. I love quotes and walking into this school of 1000 students noticed: cc licensed ( BY NC SD […]
My time at Viborg Katedralskole is coming to an end in a few days, which saddens me greatly. The liberal Danish ethos towards education and the general willingness of the students to engage with learning and life has been a joy to experience. The staff are very collegial. I have enjoyed their company and appreciated the professional encouragement […]
cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore I am currently listen to the live stream from TEDxLondon of the #EducationRevolution. Here are the speakers and the Facebook page for the event. Sir Ken Robinson has just opened the conference with his usual inspiring clarity. His anecdote relating Peter Brook‘s beliefs regarding theatre, that you can strip almost everything […]
On 31 August 2011, the Review of Funding for Schooling panel released a Paper on Commissioned Research and four research reports, seeking feedback from the general public. It is important to note that these research reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the panel. Source The Review of Funding for […]
You may have read these musings about hashtags and citizenship after the #LondonRiots. This post is a brief reflective piece about a series of lessons with classes and Professional Development sessions with staff at Viborg Katedralskole (check the new website) focusing on student engagement, Twitter and Edmodo. It has been very enjoyable for me to be back […]
Google Translate is the most essential tool in my daily existence at the moment, on exchange in Denmark, at Viborg Katedralskole. Most Danes speak English and it is completely possible for me to function at the school, without speaking or understanding the language, in most contexts. However, the Danish documents I want to read would […]
Thanks to Prof. Steve Wheeler for his post about the ‘art of twitter’ and this slideshare below. All I need to know about Twitter I learned at kindergarten View more presentations from Steve Wheeler Slider image: cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo by xotoko: http://flickr.com/photos/xotoko/2382680812/
Infographic by the Pay Per Click Blog Hat tip: Think and Dream in English
The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. Twitter Help Centre Following the #LondonRiots or #UKRiots hashtag on twitter has made me think again about how to explore the important and relatively new […]
A colleague, who prefers it when I do not mention his name on any social media channel as he is a geek who studiously avoids facebook, twitter, blogging etc, emailed some interesting links about Stanford University and the new, “Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, by Professors Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun“. I noticed, a few minutes […]
Last year I wrote a unit of work, after my travels in Shanghai, that I would like to share with you. It is written for NSW syllabuses but it may be of some interest to any teacher interested in travel, Asia, teaching visual literacy, social media or organising a student trip overseas. Here’s the PDF […]
In the age of ‘infowhelm’ choosing the appropriate digital communication tools – to stay in-the-loop and professionally connected – is essential for any professional person, especially teacher-librarians. A teacher-librarian can make a start on developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN) by following these steps at their own pace: finding several excellent blogs to follow and […]
The department supports its employees’ participation in social media online applications such as social networking sites, wikis, blogs, microblogs, video and audio sharing sites and message boards that allow people to easily publish, share and discuss content. The above quote is the opening statement in the new Social Media Policy released by my employer, the NSW […]
Many bloggers want to create their own images as frequently as possible, with camera or software, to accompany their written text. However, often, a near-perfect image is legally available online. Ensuring the image is attributed correctly is very important, especially for educators encouraging students to source images appropriately. Thanks to quick responses to a tweet […]
I can still see the poster on my own childhood primary school classroom wall: Kids who read succeeed The Conservative politician and current British Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, has recently said that, ‘children should read 50 books a year’. Who could possibly disagree? In my (not so) humble (on this issue) opinion […]
Over the last few years my presentations and workshops, designed to share my enthusiasm for Web 2.0 with colleagues, have led to many new friendships as well as much personal and professional excitement at the future of learning. It is evident to me that all of us involved in education need to personally develop life-long […]
After watching this talk I feel a little depressed about the graph on the ability of adults to aquire a second language. I also feel that so many of us native English speakers are increasingly going to be disadvantaged in a multilingual global environment. Q: Can anyone comment about their experiences learning a second language […]
It is always wonderful to have a fresh enthusiasm to share. HDR photography (or HDRI) is new to me and in the last weeks of the holidays I learnt much about this art. Just a few years ago it would have been very difficult for me to learn about this quickly as I do not know […]
Michael Wesch has been such an important educational thinker and innovator for so many of us in recent years. Here is his ‘Rethinking Education’ video recently posted on his YouTube channel which is a must subscribe to space. You can submit entries for @mwesch‘s next video here. This is an remix of the submissions so far:
Anyone who read my blog in 2010 would know how a trip to Shanghai opened my eyes to what we have all been reading about over the last few years, the rise of China. The 2009 PISA results and commentaries seemed to quantify the obvious investment, vision and an absolute respect for the importance of education that I […]
Hello colleagues, I jotted down a list of thoughts about 2011 that feel important for me to personally remember about our school and our directions. As you can imagine, it kept growing and is somewhat incomplete. Some are basic, somewhat mundane procedural matters that all schools employ but others are philosophically important, or fundamental, if each student is to […]
It has been a great year and uplifting final day of 2010 for those of us lucky enough to work at Dapto High School. Last year, we ended our year on a professional high at the salubrious Nan Tien Temple. The staff, anecdotally and via a SurveyMonkey evaluation, overwhelmingly wanted to make it an annual event. The […]
Our principal, Andrew FitzSimons, has led the executive team, once-a-term over the last 5 years, to visit a business, organisation or important community location in the Illawarra who host our strategic meeting. We work off site in this different setting but about an hour is spent learning from our host about their organisation. They explain: Strategic planning What this organisation values in employees […]