Recently I received a letter from English educators concerned about the changes to the Higher School Certificate. Many readers of this blog are passionate English teachers and I publish the concerns expressed by Associate Professor Jackie Manuel, Dr Don Carter and Janet Dutton below for your consideration. Dear colleagues and friends, We’re writing because we need […]
“WordsEye is cutting-edge technology that works by parsing text input into a semantic representation which is then rendered as a 3D scene. This process relies on a large database of linguistic and world knowledge about objects, their parts, and their properties. A set of 2D image filters can be applied to any scene to add […]
“He is a storyteller, a poet, and has the unique ability to communicate with all Australians, across all age groups and gender. Collaborating with indigenous musicians, young performers, and artists of all genres, Kelly has created some of the most important songs of our times.” I grew up with Paul Kelly. His music and distinctive voice […]
My EDGD 824 English method students have been considering the question: how do I ‘teach Shakespeare’ and have students enjoy the experience? and I would value your input and advice. There are more resources for teaching Shakespeare than any teacher could ever read, view or use but, of course, the plays and sonnets are what […]
When Max Woods distilled the core of his presentation about ALARM (A Learning and Response Matrix) for the 200 teachers at the Chifley hotel this week to – this is all about ‘learning how to learn’ and sharing – he certainly won my respect. Ostensibly the two days of professional development were about improving HSC results, […]
“…set in the early years of the 21st century and told through text, sound, images, music and games.” Inanimate Alice, the story of Alice and her imaginary digital friend Brad, has steadily become a staple for English teachers, in many countries around the world, interested in exploring transmedia. ‘Alice’ is a ‘digital novel’ that most […]
I have been asked to ‘lecture’ at the University of Wollongong this year. This position gives me the privilege of working with tertiary students preparing to become English teachers. This is an exciting opportunity and while preparing, thinking about the idealistic and the pragmatic, it became evident to me that the experience of organising to teach […]
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 […]
Life in 100 Words is an idea gleaned from Solid Gold Creativity: The magazine, Marie Claire, recently featured a series to mark the centenary of International Women’s Day. It asked “10 women, 10 years apart, to offer their life story in 100 words.” I will try this idea with students in the future but would really […]
The political uncertainty of the election ‘result’ that Australians watched unfold last night will lead to concerned discussion about what a hung parliament will mean for our democracy. There will be many at the moment worrying, including myself, about the NBN plan and what will happen to the Digital Education Revolution, if Mr Abbott is anointed. However, another interesting question is, obviously, how […]
Thanks to Ben Jones for alerting me to David Crystal’s recent talk. Like you, I have many of his books on my shelf and find his insights into language, especially the English language, sage. [vodpod id=Video.3937737&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26] David Crystal – Texts and Tweets: myths and rea…, posted with vodpod
Readability is a simple tool that ‘makes reading on the Web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around’ what you’re reading. Check out how it works: [vodpod id=Video.3214367&w=425&h=350&fv=] Great, definitely a useful tool but what interests me is the opportunity it offers English teachers to explore how ‘Readability’ (and similar technologies) change the nature of the meaning of the text. I […]
Since Mark Pesce spoke about Twitter at an education.au conference earlier in the year, I have been embarrassingly evangelical about this microblogging service. Quite simply, Twitter lets you microblog pithy 140 characters posts, known as ‘tweets’, to your friends or followers. This often seems inane to the uninitiated but the growing number of influential educators and teacher […]
The nation’s newspapers reported on the release of the National English Curriculum: Initial Advice paper with the following opening lines: ‘GRAMMAR will return to the classroom‘ ‘CHILDREN will be taught grammar for the first time in more than 30 years’ ‘ENGLISH will be stripped back to basics under a draft national curriculum so students learn more […]
My travels in India gave me an appreciation of ‘Hinglish’ and I wasn’t in Singapore long enough to experience much ‘Singlish’ but hopefully, with Chinglish on the rise, opportunities will present themselves to enjoy the richness of this derivation in the not too distant future. How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even […]