Transmute!

I used to (and still do) like Battle of the Planets. My Raleigh Chipper wasn’t as cool The G-Force ship Phoenix, never the less, many missions were completed aboard that bike.  Spectra never stood a chance, as my mate Tommo had a Chopper for the really hard missions. BOP was the must-act-out show for us [...]

A year in …

I liked this infographic from IGN (AU). It would be an interesting exercise to make similar for the teaching year and compare the student and teacher perspectives on what is happening and when. Just so everyone knows the drill.

What can you do with IT?

Thanks to @benpaddlejones for this find. It really works as a metaphor for what you can do with a technology. This is perhaps why you can’t learn a stick anymore than you can do ICT to someone. His point was – imagine if teachers could apply and re-apply one tool to so many situations I [...]

Future Creep

What happens when you learn a new skill? Does it become your skill, or does it automatically become a skill of the organisation? Are we aware of future creep? Does future creep generate busy work? As we learn new skills and methods – or are put in situations where we are exposed to them, there [...]

Beyond the Dictomy

Here is what leadership looks like. I wonder at what point those paid to lead will abandon Parochialism and embrase Connectivism. Current public policy forces teachers to use tools that lead them to places they don’t want to go – as it’s better than nothing. Thats fine if you’re earning a $100k a year and [...]

Why cant I go to Uni now?

In year 11, many kids undertake VET courses at TAFE. They study things intended to get them to the next level, perhaps Certificate 3 or 4 in something. It’s completely normal. Being good at the HSC means being good at the summative test — list, state, identify, compare type questions etc. and a few long [...]

Infographic: The tangential learning principle

These are two infographics I’m using in a presentation in a few days to Principals. The first represents the disruptive element (social) that has appeared in socially-connected learning. It’s the part which often is potentially a crack in the wall and may lead to tangential learning, or a crack that fuels intellectual and network lock-down [...]

You are not important enough

Why don’t Australian conferences see ordinary teachers as important or worthwhile enough to invite them – virtually? Conference Tweeting gives surface indicators, commenting on ideas, repeating facts and links – without inferences. This may be the foundation of critical thinking or encourage more serious, worthier styles of participation in broader educational discourses – but face [...]

Diigo Update (weekly)

FUTURESTATES : Play By David Kaplan and Eric Zimmerman tags: play, game, videoconferencing Star Wars: Uncut tags: mashup, wars, star, starwars disposableWebPage.com Neat dumping ground for adhock collaboration tags: web, webdesign, webservice, disposable Various ways to approach writing tags: participation, community, collaboration, literacy, resources, lesson George Orwell @Web English Teacher tags: animal, farm, lessons hasselblad [...]

Trust me, I’m not a Dr.

Working with people online (that you may never really meet) is all about trust. The way trust is formed, either you believe the information you get is correct, because you choose to, or someone whose opinion you value says it’s good.  The interwebs are to a large degree a trust nexus. While everyone goofs on [...]