Educational Values in a Digital Age
I highly recommend you subscribe to Steve Wheeler’s blog and follow him on twitter.
'The Era of Sharing'
I always enjoy listening to Mark Pesce and this talk was delivered to educators in Queensland. [vodpod id=Groupvideo.3806563&w=425&h=350&fv=] more about “The Era of Sharing“, posted with vodpod
5 Minds for the Future
I managed to read Howard Gardner’s most recent book, 5 Minds for the Future these holidays and think it a useful tract. I enjoyed the book. It would be rare that an educator did not know Gardner’s contested work on multiple intelligences and to have made use of it in their classroom. He opens his book suggesting that […]
#CCK09 First Paper (Draft): 'Positioning' Connectivism
Context This brief, largely informal and reflective (draft) paper for the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Online Course, is written with the intention of positioning Connectivism in context, for educational leaders intent on developing new pedagogy in Australian schools appropriate to the digital age. It is perhaps, not what was intended for this assignment but is an accurate reflection of my perceptions of the […]
Connectivism & Connective Knowledge #CCK09
This week, like many learning professionals around the globe, I commenced an online course to disrupt all online courses, Connectivism & Connective Knowledge. The #CCK09 MOODLE has many resources and you can drop by and read all the participant introductions. ‘Connectivism is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that […]
Reflections on the NSW Deputy Principals' Annual Conference '09
I have been critical of the last couple of DP conferences but found this year’s event in the Hunter Valley a much more satisfying experience. The venue and facilities were spacious, salubrious and the wireless connectivity good. The mood was very positive in all respects. The keynotes were mostly excellent but what made a difference, […]
The Best School Websites
Q: What’s the best school website you know? Please send! I’ll collate and do a blog post. Cheers I asked the above question of my PLN on Twitter and what follows is the complete list of all school websites tweeted or emailed in response. Thanks to everyone who responded and/or retweeted. I’ve decided to break […]
Leadership Day 2009
Scott McLeod has sent out a clarion call for bloggers to post about leadership: He says, “many of our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central office administrators) need help when it comes to digital technologies” and in our NSW context, with the DER in full swing, this is particularly pertinent. I have always assumed that Scott’s blog […]
The Best of 1:1 Advice
Here’s the cream of the 100s of replies from my PLN, you folks, for a 4 minute – ‘best of 1: 1′ laptop suggestions – video. 1:1 PLN Advice
10 things 'a school' can do in preparation for 1:1 (laptops) in classrooms
This is the third post in a series. You may wish to read the first and second posts concerned with what a teacher and faculty can do in preparation for 1:1 too. 10 things ‘a school’ can do in preparation for 1:1 (laptops) in classrooms: 1. Funding– expectations of a champagne experience from a beer budget tend to fizzle when the reality […]
10 things a 'DET teacher' can do in preparation for 1:1 (laptops) in classrooms
This will be the first in a series of posts designed to help our whole school community gain the full benefit of the rollout of laptops. This year there will be hundreds of laptops flooding into our school and wireless connectivity. We have been preparing for quite a while now and will continue to do so. The […]
Australian Educators to Follow on Twitter
Recently I’ve been chatting with lots of teachers new to Twitter or keen to experience the service. I’ve sent them links that list ways to find teachers and professionals to follow on Twitter. Here’s an alphabetical list of 10 Australian educators that I get great value from on Twitter: Chris Betcher Dean Groom Elaine Talbert Kelli McGraw […]
James Burke: Connections & The Knowledge Web
Stilgherrian is often outrageously irreverent, and also shares his intellectual interests, on Twitter. He sent out this link, which I suspect will result in me losing many hours of my life to James Burke and posted this at his blog. Here’s a taste of episode 1 of Burke’s 1978 series, Connections. However, it his Knowedge […]
Peter Johnson
My colleague, Peter Johnson, officially retires on Monday 27th April after 40 years of serving our community and working to help the youth of NSW. Peter’s support and friendship has been unwavering during the three years we have worked together at Dapto High School. I have learnt much from him and remember, on first meeting Peter, being […]
'The Clay Layer'
The glacial pace of change in Education is a theme constantly discussed by colleagues I admire but mostly I hear the opposite, that change is too relentless, too challenging. Systems seem to have some inbuilt, organic way of slowing change – preserving the status quo – and even when the paradigm shift is acknowledged, key players seem unable to generate the […]
Open Letter to an Education System Leader
Mr __________, Our community appreciates your attendance at our awards ceremony at such a busy time of the year. While you are here, I was hoping to take the opportunity to present an outline of an idea that is both representative of the paradigm shift in education but also an example of how our […]
Director General's Memo: Commonwealth-state Funding Outcomes for NSW
Dear Colleagues, State and territory governments met with the Commonwealth on the weekend to negotiate funding agreements for public schools and vocational education and training. Of course you’d have to been living on the moon to miss recent media coverage of all this, so forgive me any repetition in outlining how this is […]
ETA Conference: Web 2.0 Workshop
Colleagues, Far too often at conference ‘workshops’ are merely lectures in masquerade…not today! Now that you have listened to my brief presentation, attempting to define the Web 2.0 and it’s impact, lets try and establish the beginnings of the Personal Learning Networks (PLN) discussed earlier. You may wish to choose your path from the following suite […]
ETA Conference: Blogs and Blogging Workshop
Welcome to this ‘Blogs and Blogging’ ETA workshop. We have 30 computers but with so many particpants you may have to share a computer, which may work out well as we collaborate today (and in the future?) to develop our blogs and networks. The rubric for the workshop: The media landscape, especially journalism, has undergone […]
Learning Teams
Our school ran a Year 7 Learning Team Project with one class this year and the evaluations are extremely positive. The executive is currently working out how best to improve the learning outcomes of students, especially in the middle years of school. We really need to engage our 11-14 year olds much more effectively and to […]
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 […]