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When I found out that I was accepted into Google Teacher Academy to be held in Sydney in September, I went and shared with a few staff members in the next office. One staff member asked whether that meant I would come back and get everyone going Google. I was startled, that has never been my intention. I have always pushed for encouraging communication and collaboration in and out of the classroom. Something that +Steve Brophy  and I spoke about at the recent DLTV2014 conference . Sadly, many staff who I have worked with often see Google Drive as just a tool and not much more . I was then left wondering, why did I want to be a part of the Google Teacher Academy and what do I hope to get out of the experience? I think that there is a misconception, and maybe that misconception is my own, that Google Teachers Academy is all about getting a whole lot of teachers using more Google products and somehow becoming inadvertent ambassadors for the corperation. Let me state c...

creative commons licensed (BY-NC) flickr photo by mrkrndvs: http://flickr.com/photos/aaron_davis/14557280205  I have been reflecting quite a bit lately on what I see as the importance of making online connections with other educators and developing dialogues to continue the conversation about education. Some of the push back that I have gotten is about who those teachers are that I am actually connecting with and what agenda is really being pushed? The question that it has me wondering is whether being a connected educator automatically equals being radical? If not, then where is the middle ground or is there something else going on that is being missed? The Good, the Bad and the Ugly There is something about social media as a medium which lends itself to extremes. Take Twitter for example, often it is a case of the loudest statements that seem to stand out the most. Too often though this noise equates to latching ourselves to the latest panacea to all of education w...

creative commons licensed (BY-NC-SA) flickr photo by mrkrndvs: http://flickr.com/photos/aaron_davis/14422391611 Yesterday I took my daughter on her first train trip into the city. She had a ball and loved every minute, but what struck me was what grabbed her attention the most. One of the most interesting things was the digital billboards. It is not that she had not been to a shopping centre before and spotted the oversized posters, but these had the extra appeal of having the sheen that comes with a digital image cycled every few seconds. She stood and watched for minutes, mesmerised. Me, I couldn't think of anything more boring, until it dawned on me, I was seeing this from the wrong perspective, this was her experience to have. So I let her be. This all kind of reminded me of the efforts to introduce change in the classroom and the experiences that such actions bring with them. At the opening day of the TL21C program , +Will Richardson  suggested identifying one th...

creative commons licensed (BY-NC-ND) flickr photo by mrkrndvs: http://flickr.com/photos/aaron_davis/14382546023 I had the privilege the other day to hear +Will Richardson speak as the keynote for the first day of the TL21C Program. His mantra for his presentation was to leave teacherse feeling confused and uncomfortable, yet inspired. He basically spoke about the divide that is growing between learning at home and in schools. Often if we want to teach something in school today, we structure it in a way that fits our needs and structures. That is our timetables, our assessment structures, there is little room to simply fly ahead. Whereas outside of this environment, if someone wants to learn something they just immerse themselves in it, find out what they need and go ahead and learn it. Modern learning is not about being aware of everything, but about being aware of the options. The message that Richardson came back to again and again was that we need to make what we currently d...