Posted in change, education, future on Jul 11th, 2008 3 Comments »
Well it’s a conference, tiring and hard work especially with the 10 ½ hour days that they run. As always the people, networks and connections that you make seem the most rewarding part of a conference.
The conference theme is Engaging Communities and the opening address was eloquently given by Dr Pita Sharples gave that [...]
Posted in education, learning, nz, schools on Jun 9th, 2008 No Comments »
New Zealand has an Enviroschool scheme where it tries to support schools with sustainability. One of the local schools here in Hamilton has just been on the telly detailing what they have been doing.
They started a garden to grow veg and teach the children elements of sustainability. The project grew as they decided [...]
Posted in change, education, future, learning, technology on Jun 2nd, 2008 3 Comments »
Edupunk seems to be the word on everyones lips at the moment - well at least those that are talking about it!
See D’Arcy Norman; Lesley Madsen Brookes; Stephen Downes; Brian Lamb; Doug Noon
A conjunction coined by Jim Groom, however, as both commentators and protagonists seem to be agreeing, creating a name and a definition runs [...]
Posted in blogging, change, education, future, learning on May 16th, 2008 9 Comments »
Yesterday, we had a quick demo of Mahara by Mark Nichols as part of a wider day of information exchange. Mahara has been built as an eportfolio tool and appears to have taken some influence from Elgg. It contains a blog tool which has the ability to be kept private, shared selectively or [...]
Posted in change, education, future, learning, schools, technology on May 11th, 2008 1 Comment »
Have been doing a lot of reading recently and assessment is a theme that keeps recurring. Ewan McIntosh and David Muir both blog a recent talk by Stephen Heppell where he revisits the idea of assessment equivalence. I heard him talk on this theme some time ago and I don’t think that the [...]
Posted in change, education, future, learning, technology on Apr 24th, 2008 2 Comments »
A few days ago, Christopher Sessums posted an article about a talk he had been giving on social networking. In his post he notes
At the end of my Social Networks talk, I asked participants what they would like to see in a social networking application. A young undergraduate student promptly raised his hand and [...]
Posted in education, nz, schools on Apr 18th, 2008 No Comments »
Two days ago, six school children and a teacher were washed to their deaths in a flash flood on a NZ mountain stream (see stuff.co.nz and NZ Herald). A terrible accident and it brings back poignant memories of a similar accident in the Yorkshire Dales, UK when two schoolgirls were swept to their deaths. In [...]
Posted in education, learning, nz, schools, technology on Apr 16th, 2008 No Comments »
Had some wide ranging conversations about various aspects of education in New Zealand today. All are anecdotal and several relate to personal experiences of my family.
Before we emigrated to NZ, we read up about what opportunities there were in learning, elearning, learning technology etc. The government made a big thing about how NZ was at [...]
