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If you read, listen or watch to a certain sub-section of the media around schools and the education system more broadly it's not hard to come to the conclusion that schools are broken and need to be changed. A couple of recent posts from the feeds I track have got me thinking. George Siemens recently described his belief that it is so broken that it needs to be changed from the outside, probably by entrepreneurs. George Couros, speaking from within the systems, has generated some discussion with a post reflecting on whether or not and why people don't like change. He summarises some of the comments in this post....more...
In the first few years of teaching information technology at university I met a number of mature age students who were returning to study to get degrees. These were amongst the most enjoyable students to teach, not to mention simply being the best students. One of those students struggled with aspects of the technology, but stuck at it and did well. So well, she ended up completing her PhD years and years before I even looked like completing mine. She even ended up being the head of the school teaching IT....more...
Increasingly I think most of management is driven by fads. Even if the "fad" has some good underlying principles, or is perhaps simply a bit better than previous options. It is still implemented by management as a fad. As if we only implement this successfully, we will have the silver bullet that solves all our problems. Within higher education I have previously argued that open source learning management systems are one of the more recent fads....more...
This is a simple holding place for some ideas and quotes from George Siemens' recent Connectivism: Changing times talk....more...
As described earlier the next couple of years probably has me becoming a high school teacher. A transition I am planning to blog about, perhaps eventually to do some research about. This comment by Scott Aldred suggests that this might be an interesting experience. Scott's point is that various constraints and factors arising from the nature of public education and its organisation within Australia and Queensland are such that reflective blogging is not as straight forward as you might hope. Given that I'm generally somewhat cynical/critical, this might become problematic....more...
As a first step to BIM v2.0 I'm installing and starting to play with Moodle 2.0 (RC2). The following is a summary/reflection of the experience. One of the aims of this is to investigate how Moodle 2.0 handles its integration with external blogs and see what lessons/insights I can learn for BIM v2.0....more...
The following is an attempt to summarise an attempt to understanding EduFeedr a bit more. Especially to compare and contrast it with BIM. I'm particularly interested in seeing what lessons can be learned from EduFeedr, not to mention what code and ideas can be borrowed....more...
Via Scott Leslie's free and learning composition comes the news that EduFeedr is up and going. ...more...
As mentioned last week, I'm slowly commencing the process of becoming a high school teacher in information technology and mathematics. As part of that process I'm trying to get back into maths - its almost 25 years since I did my undergrad math courses - and build up a network of folk and ideas....more...
As recently noted, I'm about to return to university study. Have decided that I'm going to keep a journal of the entire experience. Perhaps with some intent later on to use this as data for research around the student experience. This may be of some interest as I will be studying at the institution I worked for as an academic for 20 years....more...
I am unsure whether or not I believe in specific turning points. Perhaps life is a bit more complex. The metaphor of life as a road with specific forks which mark the turning points, seems a bit simplistic. But today does feel like a turning point due to two events:...more...
I'm slowly getting out from under the thesis, which means I am starting to have some time to think about the next version of BIM. The following is an attempt to lay out some of the ideas I have for the next version of BIM. Beyond helping me gather my thoughts, I'm hoping it will generate some comments and ideas from others. I doubt I will be able to implement all of the suggestions, so I'm hoping to get a sense for what others think is most important....more...
This is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of the thesis. It's a re-do of an earlier post, I'm a bit happier with it than v1.0. I'm posting it here because it connects with some work I'm doing preparing to work on BIM v2.0 and also because it summarises what I think may areas of further research in e-learning would be, if I were to do any....more...
This weekend provided a wonderful story of the power of intrinsic motivation, and a perfect example of what I think is increasingly wrong with Australian higher education, especially its use of technology....more...
Over the last few days I've been catching up on some writing (first last week Leigh Blackall and this morning from Richard Hall) that, at least for me, seems to be trying to find ways that the current crisis in higher ed can be used as a spring board for something better. I certainly think there is an opportunity there. Dave Snowden has argued...more...