What is digital fluency?

[This was originally posted on the CORE Education blog.] A recent announcement from Hon. Hekia Parata signalled that digital fluency will be a key focus for Ministry centrally-funded professional learning support in 2016 (PLD Changes will lift student achievement, 23 Sept. 2015). The value of growing digitally fluent learners was signalled in the Ministry report, […]

Harnessing the power of connectedness | Growing adaptive experts #ConnectAU15

I recently presented one of the sessions at #ConnectAU15, a huge expo focused on futures thinking and connected practices, with one summit devoted to Connected Education. I’ve blogged about the other themes here: Keynote: Don Tapscott Keynote: Sebastian Thrun Pipelines for education Robotics for the future Below are the notes from my session which focused […]

The death of the digital community?

This post is my contributing chapter for the special Connected Educator Month project #edbooknz – an e-book launched by Sonja Van Schaijik. Many thanks to Rachel Roberts for her ‘warm yet challenging’ feedback:) “My seven year old daughter knows that her father congregates with a family of invisible friends who seem to gather in his […]

7 characteristics of a true connected educator

Being connected is dispositional – the modern educator must adapt expertise to serve the evolving needs of their learner. Here are what I assert are the 7 characteristics of a connected educator…

Connected Educator Month goes global: My interview with the CEM team in the US

I am a few days into Connected Educator Month here in New Zealand and it’s hugely exciting what’s already started to happen. I’m leading this initiative as part of CORE Education, with a team from Victoria, Australia and the original Connected Educator Team in the US. Here is an interview I gave for the global CEM site: […]

Can social network sites support effective professional learning?

[Cross-posted from CORE Education’s blog] This blog post is based on my Masters of Education thesis, Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. It informs the thinking behind this October’s Connected Educator Month 2014. The changing face of professional learning for educators Studies into effective school change and system-lift place professional development at […]

Teaching as inquiry and e-learning: 3 questions

I have done a fair bit of work with schools recently exploring what the ‘teaching as inquiry’ professional learning cycle looks like in a school that has e-learning as a focus. There seem to be a handful of key questions that keep coming up that I thought I would touch on in this post 1. […]

My CORE Breakfasts 2014: Digitising professional learning – or not.

“You actually bring about real change by working with … people. Not by demonstrating, but by working alongside them and getting into the core of what it is. To really bring about change, you’ve got to get an understanding about what that person is about and what drives that person. You can’t just do it to […]

BYOD: Build your own depth

Today I’m sharing a thought to conjure with. My recent presentations to schools have increasingly emphasised the inclusive nature of effective learning design. The importance of designing different pathways around the learners, those people, both students and teachers, who sit at the heart of how we think about learning programmes. Dimensions of effective teaching A recent […]

#Ulearn13 Reflection | Four ideas in evolution

The #ULearn13 conference last week, for me, was a blur of workshops [check out the end of this post for the full list of my resources] and working with the Social Media team in CORE to blend, integrate and support teachers to look at connecting their practice. I would have dearly loved to have got […]