Reading Writing Responding

creative commons licensed (BY-SA) flickr photo by Orin Zebest: http://flickr.com/photos/orinrobertjohn/116972344 This year, I have taken to audiobooks. Unsatisfied by my consumption of podcasts and frustrated with all the books that I just don't have time to read, I have taken to listening while I'm walking, driving, working, gardening - basically, whenever allows. During this time I have gone through quite a few books: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell At the heart of Gladwell's book is the myth of power and strength. What he sets out to uncover is that so often strengths are at same time weakness and with that supposed weaknesses can often be our greatest strengths. His archetypal example is David and Goliath. So often it is a story told of an underdog getting lucky, but really when you break the story down David was meant to win. For so often success comes through subverting the expectations of o...

creative commons licensed (BY-NC-SA) flickr photo by mrkrndvs: http://flickr.com/photos/aaron_davis/14929330102WALL-e quote A teacher at school came into my office the other day excited that he'd just received a new document at a recent network meeting. The document was 'Towards a New End: New Pedagogies for Deep Learning' . A document produced by Michael Fullan and Maria Langworthy as a part of the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning global project . The teacher in question was disappointed that we weren't also apart of the project. The odd thing was that I had already seen this document. Firstly, via +Jenny Ashby on Twitter and then through her blog post requesting opinions and perspectives on the various skills. While I then came upon it as a part of the WMR 21st Century Network that +Sam Irwin and I set up. +Chris Karageorge shared how his school had also joined the project. This whole situation highlighted two things to me: one, we are all i...

Lego poetry at DLTV2014 As I sat through one of the most horrendous presentations on Office 365, it got me wondering about the question, what makes a good presentation? I sat there thinking what would make this better? What was missing?   At first I thought that it was the absence of any conversation about pedagogy. A point that +Edna Sackson made about last years GAFE Summit in her post, ' 'I Want to Talk About Learning…' There was reference to pricing schemes and packages, what this includes and what that does. However, I had signed up with the hope that I could take back to school a few more tips relating to how to get the most out of Windows 8 - whether it be new applications or different functionalities - I was wrong.   The one thing that held me together throughout was the conversations I was having on Twitter with +Rich Lambert . He too was lost in the presentation. Although our banter was critical of Microsoft and their lack of innovation, much of it...

Photo Credit:  Celestine Chua  via  Compfight cc This is the first assignment as a part of the ATC21S Coursera MOOC. It involved selecting an example of collaborative problem solving (CPS) in which you have been involved. The response included illustrating an understanding of the nature of collaborative problem solving, why it is important and what sets it apart from activities like group work. Associated with this, two specific incidents were required to demonstrate that different collaborators have different levels of skill in CPS. This is my response ... It is easy to think of Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) as a highfalutin euphemism for what is commonly known as group work. However, they are not the same. The major difference is that CPS focuses on the skills and attributes people bring, rather than the jobs people do. In a traditional classroom, group work usually involves splitting a task between members in order to do something more efficiently ...

This post and associated slides are for my TL21C Reboot Session addressing the topic of: Becoming a Connected Educator (22/7/2014) Becoming a Connected Educator (TL21C) - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires Becoming a connected educator is so unique. There is no rule or recipe to follow and no two stories are the same. The reality is that it is many things to many people. The biggest challenge is continually defining what it actually means to be connected and why it is important. I don't wish to offer some cure, rather I hope to keep the conversation going. Instead of providing a recipe, my approach has always been to share some of the choices that I have made and my thoughts behind them. Although signing up to various platforms is important, it is the journey associated with this that matters most to me. As +Tony Sinanis   says , in reflecting on his own connected experiences, "the Twitter experience is a journey ... it is not an exp...

Image via  Twitter   Lately my daughter has moved on from watching Dora the Explorer and Peppa Pig, to partaking of various kids films. Starting with Frozen, she has since moved to the various Disney princess films. Having initially seen them all when I was growing up, there are two strange feelings in watching them again. Firstly, the many themes and subtle story lines that just aren't as present for a younger audience. Secondly though, watching the films with a cautious three year old, you get a different view about how dark and scary these seemingly innocent films can actually be. It would be easy to suggest that this experience with my daughter makes me a better person and a better teacher. This was the lesson implied in a recent post from +Craig Kemp in which he discussed how being a dad makes his a better teacher . His premise was that being a parent has made him more aware of his students and their many diverse needs. Before this moment in his life he di...