I went out to dinner with a group of “Edutwits” on Wednesday evening – an event organised by the amazing Kerry Johnson. Now, Kerry works for educationau but her influence spreads way beyond her official employment role. This dinner was a great example of that and connected up [...]
After reading an extract from a new Nikki Gemmell book about her Australian childhood memories and the contrast with her own children’s lives, I decided to think back to my own life as a kid in the seventies in rural South Australia. Here’s what memories come floating back to [...]
D’Arcy Norman poses the question, “How do you connect to people online?” This post is my response to that question.
It’s this blog that I value the most as a connection point with others. It’s where I started dabbling in this networked way, where I connected to my first edublogger [...]
In English, I’ve been trying to weave the skills of debating into my classroom. It has been something that the majority have found quite difficult, with many mistaking the ability to argue in a contrary fashion for insightful and clever debate. Their confidence in combining oratory skills and a considered [...]
It would be no surprise to regular readers of this blog to find out that I’ve been struggling for motivation to write reflectively here of late. I seem to be surprisingly resentful of those colleagues who seem to find the time to vege out in front of the television, read [...]
This song is a couple of years old but I’ve rediscovered it via Triple J’s Hottest 100 list and YouTube. Together with Aussie hiphop crew, The Herd, it is good to see good political music didn’t die when Peter Garrett became a Labor MP.
Blue King [...]
Ann, my principal, sent out an SOS email tonight in preparation for a presentation she has to give at a regional meeting. The questions she sent were good reflective ones so what better place to actually answer them than here. Any feedback always appreciated:
1. In what ways are you gaining [...]
Two weeks ago, we packed up our computer room in preparation for the impending demolition of our current library (Resource Centre) in the lead up to the building of our BER funded new “21st Century Library“. The thirty odd desktops of varying vintages were distributed throughout the classrooms or [...]
Having holiday breaks is one of the great perks of the teaching profession – I will never deny that. At this stage of the year, it’s a great chance to get some of the jobs done around the house that have been put on hold for a few months. It [...]
One of the greatest problems with text as a form of communication is that it can be so easily misinterpreted.
Of course, one of the greatest strengths of text as a form of communication is that it can be so easily re-interpreted.
In the first instance, this can be a frustrating from [...]
Meet Gray Jyraffe.
He’s a Noob in Second Life. He’s been hanging around Jokaydia, ISTE Island and freebie shops scavenging around trying to work out how to teleport, fly and strike up conversations with impressively physiqued and impeccably attired avatars. Gray has even been to [...]
A revised post will appear here soon.
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fgwegner.edublogs.org%2F2009%2F09%2F17%2Ftext-heavy-makes-a-comeback%2F'; addthis_title = 'Text+Heavy+Makes+A+Comeback'; addthis_pub = ''; [...]I make no secret that I really enjoy Dan Meyer’s blogging and his ideas around engaging mathematics. If I was a high school Maths teacher, I’d be rewriting my own curriculum and unit plans around many of his concepts and points of challenge. But because much of his content [...]
I’m feeling very proud of my colleagues this evening. Between my principal and I, we cooked up a sharing process based on a poster sharing session she was part of during a Teaching Australia principal’s PD program. The focus was on sharing contemporary classroom practice with a technology flavour. We [...]
Toni Glasson – Assessment for Learning – My Notes From Our Session at our Pupil Free Day
Start planning with what skills, knowledge and understanding do you want your students to have, not what will we “do” in the classroom. 21st century learning is about personalisation, students are the [...]
Stephen Downes posted a couple of years ago about one of my blog posts that:
…we should not be reading people, we should be reading topics.
I didn’t really understand what he meant until I read this recent post from Claudia Ceraso. The whole post is an excellent explanation [...]
I think that the only thing worse than a tunnel visioned Web 2.0 evangelist is a tunnel visioned Mac enthusiast. And I say that after recent purchases of both a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. I mean, they’re both nice pieces of technology but the frothy mouthed utterings of some [...]
One of the biggest challenge of my position as leader in the use of ICT in the classroom is reaching back and offering a helping hand to those who are not as confident and sure in the use of tools like laptops and IWBs in their classroom. It is easier [...]
A week ago, I was still in sunny Sydney with my colleagues waiting to get some taxis out to the airport after the giant prize draw at the end of IWBNet09. My group did OK in that regard – one colleague won a year’s subscription to some form of software [...]
Session summary:
John’s forte was the development of Learning Games, based on Powerpoint and some more sophisticated Flash based content. He took attendees through some of the games including “Battle Of The Sexes” (useful only in co-ed schools), “Millionaire” and several others. He also talked through the use of [...]
I got back Saturday from the National IWB conference (referred to as IWBNet09 as the event is run by IWBNet) tired and glad to be back in quiet old Adelaide. I went with a group of colleagues from my school along with Dr. Trudy Sweeney and [...]
Q: How can you tell if a plane is headed for Adelaide?
A: There are nearly as many boxes of Krispy Kremes on board as passengers!
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/giveawayboy/382879098/
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fgwegner.edublogs.org%2F2009%2F08%2F22%2Fif-the-plane-goes-down-at-least-we-wont-be-hungry%2F'; addthis_title = 'If+The+Plane+Goes+Down%2C+At+Least+We+Won%26%238217%3Bt+Be+Hungry'; addthis_pub = ''; [...]I quite enjoyed the first day of training for the Intel Thinking With Technology course today. A small group of ten educators who are being trained to take this course back to their sites made for an engaging time as we whipped through the first two modules, led by our [...]
I might need one of these before the term is out.
Thanks to Pearls Before Swine for allowing embeds.
addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fgwegner.edublogs.org%2F2009%2F08%2F11%2Fwheres-your-internet-happy-box-when-you-need-it%2F'; addthis_title = 'Where%26%238217%3Bs+Your+Internet+Happy+Box+When+You+Need+It%3F'; addthis_pub = ''; [...]I’ve hanging around a few Nings of late and even kick started one to give some of my staff a first hand experience of social networking walled garden style. One that I’ve just joined recently is part of an online conference run by my education system and focussing on Learning [...]
Along with a group of teachers from my school, I am heading off to the National IWB Conference in Sydney in late August. Despite having used one in my classroom since 2005 and being one of the prime movers in getting them installed in our school, my opinion on [...]
If we want our students to understand why certain groups of people from around the world chose to leave their home and end up in Adelaide (my students’ home town) , then an overall sense of modern world history is needed to gain that understanding. This becomes a classic example [...]
Just a quick reflection on a tuning in activity I did with the class this afternoon. We’re starting a new Inquiry unit titled “Why Is The World Coming To Adelaide?” which has a focus on examining the impact multicultualism has had on this city over time. So, the starting point [...]
It’s my birthday today. I’m 43.
You’d think that I could make up my own mind about things by now but I’m as easily influenced as I ever was. Except now my influences seep in through digital connection as much as face to face.
I went down and upgraded my mobile phone [...]
I’ve been lurking around some excellent blog posts and catching some mind challenging tweets of late. This little beauty from Will Richardson is a typical thoughtful piece of writing but it is the quality of the comments that had me enjoying the to and fro of the topic. [...]
(Starts with foreboding music)
“Spoon feed me” – that’s the expectations of the teachers who are on holidays.
The Assessment villians – no one knows how to assess technology, exams and numbers don’t tell a kid what they have learnt , grades are good for politicians, kids are good at playing school.
Got [...]
Jeff Utecht via Stephen Downes says:
It was a good discussion that talked about how the conversation is changing. That at a point in time we use to actually take time to read and leave comments on blog posts. Now we read, and retweet blog posts. We talked about [...]
From the local (and only) daily newspaper here in Adelaide:
PARENTS hope new minimum teaching times for maths, English and science in South Australian primary schools will bring Australia in line with top-performing countries and lift student test scores.
Figures reported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show [...]
June has been a very lean month for this blog but not without good reason. This month has seen the writing of mid year reports followed by this week’s full schedule of three way interviews (parents/ student /teachers) which has sucked up most of my free planning and writing time. [...]
A bit later this year, my school will get its BER-funded library. And while we don’t get that much choice about the design of the actual building, Ann my principal keeps reminding the staff that we have a lot of choice about the interior looks like. She believes (and I [...]
My principal, Ann, and I will often throw challenging statements into the conversation mix in the staffroom every now and then and wait for a bite.
“I can see a future where handwriting is an irrelevant skill.” (This is guaranteed a rapid response with junior primary teachers who see that sentence [...]
Just so you know, any resemblance to any edublogger, highly or lowly Technorati ranked, is purely coincidental. This is just the urge I get after reading so many comic strips lately.
Ahhh, I feel so much better now … I mean, I hope that this (ahem) helps some [...]
If I had the time, talent and inclination, I reckon I’d love to be a comic strip artist. We’ve been looking at written humour in the classroom and analysing how much context and prior knowledge is needed in order for the humour in a comic strip to become obvious and [...]
Back in March, Doug Noon wrote about his free and voluntary classroom reading program. After trying to get my own literature circle program up and running late last year and still unsure of the best approach with this current bunch of students, his post painted a picture that I [...]
I reckon a skillfully constructed cartoon can say more than any blog post ever could. So, as Australian schools gear up for the annual NAPLAN tests, I couldn’t resist posting this gem from Savage Chickens.
Good luck to all involved in this process. Let’s hope that [...]
My interest was captured by this reference from Stephen Downes to a Christoper Sessums’ post where Christopher related a fascinating tale about an intriguing twitter exchange with Don Tapscott. I’m not so much interested in the controversy of this 140 character word swap as the simple [...]
I really enjoyed our class camp last week to Hindmarsh Island, near Goolwa on the Fleurieu Peninsula. It was good to get to know my students some more in a different environment away from the classroom but I enjoyed the opportunity to step away from the lead teacher role [...]
The way I plan for my teaching has changed a lot over the past few years. This really was obvious today as my wife, Joanne, planned for her two days of teaching this week in the manner that I did not so long ago - writing out lesson plans by [...]
One of the biggest challenges in implementing this concept of “life long learners” is not just changing the mindset of the teachers in our classrooms but the students as well. Many of them have well established expectations of how school should play out and for many of them, being a [...]
I finally splashed out the other weekend and bought an iPod Touch, even going so far as to buy the 32 GB version. I had some thank you money from my involvement in PLP over the summer, our prime minister is encouraging Australians to spend their way out of the [...]
I had the chance to attend a MasterClass for leaders presented by Teaching Australia, a group who have produced documents detailing professional standards for teachers and leadership. The session was led by Professor Mike Gaffney, and the MasterClass was a sort of face to face entree for a [...]
We have 10,000 netbooks being rolled out in a trial in Victorian state schools. See here for Bill Kerr’s analysis.
We have 200,000 laptops of similar ilk being rolled out by the NSW DET. A spirited debate on this news is currently happening on the Oz-Teachers list ([...]
