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 […]
National English Curriculum: Initial Advice
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 […]
Monet and Learning
My family had the opportunity to visit Monet and the Impressionists at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney on the weekend and my 4 year old daughter’s enthusiasm to learn (without this ever being discussed) was both a joy and instructive to the educator within. I always get an audio guide – when […]
Will videogames become better than life?
The title of David Perry’s TED talk on videogames instantly reminded me of that Red Dwarf episode and novel, ‘Better Than Life’. Enjoy this amusing and sometimes challenging presentation. [vodpod id=Groupvideo.1638837&w=425&h=350&fv=bgColor%3DFFFFFF%26file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fmovies%2FDavidPerry_2006-embed-Autodesk_high.flv%26autoPlay%3Dfalse%26fullscreenURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fflash%2Ffullscreen.html%26forcePlay%3Dfalse%26logo%3D%26allowFullscreen%3Dtrue] more about “Will videogames become better than life?“, posted with vodpod
Teaching for a living II
Posting about ‘reflection’ always gives rise to more of the same. It made me feel less than I’d like to be when I suggested my motivation to be a DP was merely, “…for financial reasons“. There’s more that can be said on this point that links to perhaps the greatest social experiment the country has […]
Teaching for a living
Holidays always give one room for reflection. I am really starting to miss classroom teaching. In my role as a deputy principal, at a large state school, there are many opportunities to promote quality teaching & learning but having only one class (who have just finished school to prepare for the HSC) is starting to […]
How the law is strangling creativity
Laurence Lessig’s new book, Remix, explores the themes discussed mentioned in this TED video. Some of the remixed clips are pretty funny, especially ‘Jesus – The Musical’. [vodpod id=Groupvideo.1449335&w=425&h=350&fv=bgColor%3DFFFFFF%26file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fmovies%2FLARRYLESSIG-2007_high.flv%26autoPlay%3Dfalse%26fullscreenURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fstatic.videoegg.com%2Fted%2Fflash%2Ffullscreen.html%26forcePlay%3Dfalse%26logo%3D%26allowFullscreen%3Dtrue] more about “How the law is strangling creativity “, posted with vodpod
Picture this!
I love stats – even those that disturb. Watch this video to see how one can visualize some very challenging and important statistics about modern American life. I would like to show this to every student I teach and perhaps present them with, or even better allow them to research, some Australian stats and visually […]
'NSW pulls out of computers-for-schools program'
The term ends and one would hope for more inspirational news from our political and system leaders. The above headline is from the ABC website and I am assuming it is reporting on yesterday’s memo from the Director-General but am uncertain what it will mean for us in schools who have already been allocated money/laptops […]
Web Search Strategies in Plain English
How do you search the web effectively? Another in the ‘Plain English’ series of brief instructional videos. [vodpod id=Groupvideo.1593352&w=425&h=350&fv=] more about “Web Search Strategies in Plain Englis…“, posted with vodpod