#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 […]

Review: Untitled (Past, Present, Future)

Visiting the Stedelijk Museum with my family, after three rewarding but long days of getting value for money from our museum discount card, was one highlight of our time in Amsterdam. By this stage we were weary and in danger of becoming jaded with even the most fabulous cultural artefacts, but such was the excellence […]

Review #GeorgeOrwellOnScreen

My positive disposition towards George Orwell On Screen (Adaptations, Documentaries and Docudramas on Film and Television) – before ever getting to read it – was due to David Ryan‘s generous assistance. The author provided sage advice on where I could view Orwellian material for free while living in London. Many pleasant hours…um…days were spent at BFI Southbank in their […]

‘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 […]

Asia Education Foundation: Australia-India #BRIDGEprogram2017

Cultural exchange is a very important value for the school I serve. “A Wider World View” is encouraged through hosting guests, especially from our region of Asia, as well as travelling overseas. This year we have students and educators from Indonesia, Korea and India involved in exchange projects. This week the Australia–India BRIDGE School Partnerships Project flowered […]

Mindfulness and Grit

In all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as the best predictor of success.  And it wasn’t social intelligence, it wasn’t good looks, physical health, it wasn’t IQ.  It was grit.  Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.  Grit is having stamina.  Grit is sticking with your future day in day out, […]

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 […]

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 […]

#BYOD Tool: #AdobePost

Adobe Post is a great free tool for placing text on photos and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.  Of course, this makes it useful for all kinds of social media posts and teachers may find it great for making: • inspirational quotes • event invites • album covers • email newsletter graphics • […]

Building Australia Through Citizen Science*

What place does citizen science have in our schools? I pinched the title of this article from a paper published this year by the Office of the Chief Scientist. Professor Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist** alerted the delegates at the inaugural Australian Citizen Science Association conference held in Canberra this year – Maximising the Capacity […]

#BYOD Tool: WordsEye

“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 […]

#BYOD Tool: TextGrabber

This is the first in a planned series of posts that each focus on a tool that will be useful to both students and teachers in a BYOD context. The plan is that each posts explores an application or accessory that will really be useful and easy to use. This first one looks at an Optical […]

July 2015: My Reading

Two weeks of holidays certainly provided time for more books this month than last. I continue to enjoy the pleasures of rereading and science fiction, as well as some light but thoughtful travel books and tomes exploring historical wisdom on how to live – and win elections! High Possibility Classrooms Dr Jane Hunter has written a […]

Resources for Citizen Science

The Maximising the Capacity of Citizen Science for Science and Society conference run by the Australian Citizen Science Association has showcased a wide range of projects and resources that will be useful to educators and citizen science enthusiasts. I thought I’d share some links and information: Biodiversity Snapshots is a useful resource for students/teachers to work in the classroom before […]

Citizen Science in our Schools?

“Citizen Science is a partnership between individuals and scientists for investigating pressing questions about the world. The purpose of this conference is bring together the Australian Citizen Science community to share skills and ideas and encourage collaboration.” The first day of the Maximising the Capacity of Citizen Science for Science and Society conference is almost concluded and it […]

Subscribe?

Why do people still pay to subscribe to magazines, journals, websites and newspapers? For some time, to subscribe, one has entered an email address or added the website as an RSS feed for an endless stream of online articles and posts. I subscribe to about a thousand websites using Feedly. In another sense, we subscribe by clicking ‘like’ or […]

March 2015: My Reading

“Science fiction is a literature that belongs to all humankind.”  Liu Cixin March has been an exciting month of science fiction reading and some progress has been made finding novelists writing in languages other than English. The trick, of course, is to be lucky enough to find novels superbly rendered by their translators. A tip from […]

Google Classroom*

‘More teaching, less tech-ing’** My employer has provided Google Apps for Education (GAFE) since the beginning of the year. Actually, this started five years ago when the student email service was hosted by Google but has taken some time for the full suite of tools to become available. We have been promised GAFE for the […]

February 2015: My Reading

There’s been a good variety of books completed this month including graphic novels, historical fiction, essays, memoirs, biographies, contemporary fiction, revolutionary pamphlets and plenty of history. Christopher Hitchens and Thomas Paine Last month I consumed oodles of Orwell and re-read Hitchens’ evaluation of the author’s importance to contemporary literature and journalism. This has led to re-discovering […]

The Professional and the Personal

Back in 2008, Martin Weller’s video, A Twitter Love Song, captured the potential of social media to be the ‘sweet spot’, a kind of comfortable marriage of the personal with the professional. This ‘subjective’ video message of Martin’s really appealed at the time (and still does). This, I think it is fair to warn you, is a […]

Charging Windmills: My Reading in 2014

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” George R.R. Martin “I wanted to crawl in between those black lines of print, the way you crawl through a fence, and go to sleep under that beautiful big green fig-tree.” Sylvia Plath “I don’t remember ever […]

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