A merry un-conference to you!

“A very merry un-conference To you Who, me? To you Oh, me Let’s all congratulate us with another cup of tea A very merry unconference to you Now statistics prove, Prove that you’ve one conference Imagine just one conference every year Ah, but there are 364 unconferences! Precisely why we’re gathered here to cheer…” [with […]

How confident do you feel when your students are working online?

[Cross-posted from the e-Learning Research Network] If we are to make useful decisions about supporting our students as they use technology, it is important to have a baseline from which to make our decisions. A recent survey from Netsafe might be a useful starting point in this regard. How confident are teachers in managing cybersafety? This […]

Learning@School11: The gift that keeps on giving

The week of the Learning@School11 Conference in Rotorua was one marked by huge events unfolding in Christchurch – and it was rather odd to still be travelling to attend a conference that week, especially as flights were in disarray (not to mention the people). But, despite the tragedies unfolding for my colleagues, I was able […]

#eqnz

The Christchurch earthquake – and the tragedy unfolding in its wake – has stunned us all. But, in between the stories of bravery, local heroism and national response, there have been occasional moments where something has caught my attention because it is odd or unusual. For me, it was the moment in Parliament on Tuesday […]

Would you change the way you use language to keep your friends?

Love this video from the National Union of Teachers (UK) – please tell me things have changed a bit since then! – and while it might seem archaic, it might be an interesting jumping off point for students to think about how they adapt what they say, and write, when online and off. Discussion points […]

Don’t believe the hype

Thanks to Tim Kong for putting me on to Gartner’s hype cycle: a quick way to capture the way we move through periods of infatuation, with particular reference to technology. Any Principal grappling with their ICT budget will recognise this! I’m not sure how useful it actually is, other than describing a pattern that people already […]

If you think it’s too difficult, you’re right.

This is cross-posted from a guest piece I recently wrote for CORE Education: Feel the fear – and do it anyway If Hilary had concentrated only on glacial ravines, would he have ‘knocked the bastard off’? Would Armstrong have taken his great leap if he had worried his oxygen failing? And can schools embrace the […]

Are you listening to me?!… Measuring students’ engagement

What does a student look like when they’re not engaged in learning? Slack jawed? Sleepy? Distracted? Angry?…..Absent? And if they are engaged, what does that look like?…Excited? Talking critically about the topic? Full of ideas, enthusiasm and persistence? Anyone who has been a teacher probably has a gut feeling on what this looks like. And […]

Helping teachers use digital content

I have a looong list of reading to catch up on – but have started today with Gaffney’s (2010) Enhancing teachers’ take-up of digital content: factors and design principles in technology adoption. The vital importance of teacher development aligning with factors beyond themselves, such as school culture, government policy, availability of technology and so on, is […]

Worth a thousand words…

I have blogged before about the power of visualisation as a way of capturing data – Ewan McIntosh had this as a key thread in his CORE Breakfast seminars in 2010. Here’s a great website for profiling different infographics [a graphic or image that represents information] that are out there: FlowingData | Data Visualization, Infographics, and […]