Teacher-Librarians

Thanks to Robyn Beyer and the organising committee of the Northern Sydney Regional Teacher-Librarian conference for kindly inviting me to present the keynote today. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The delegates were enthusiastic and treated me very kindly indeed. cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore My pre-conference survey elicited a number of... Read More

AI MOOC (Guest Post)

My colleague, Andrew Walker, writes about his experience doing Stanford University’s AI course in a guest (and his first) blog post.   cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Darcy Moore In August last year, tech enthusiasts were buzzing with the news that Stanford University would be offering three classes online and free, in the upcoming spring semester. The... Read More

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge #CCK12

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is an open online course that over 12 weeks explores the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. Participation is open to everyone and there are no fees or subscriptions required. Connectivism and Connective Knowledge #CCK12 is a Massive Open Online... Read More

The best of both worlds: an anecdote

I have been asked to ‘lecture’ at the University of Wollongong this year. This position gives me the privilege of working with tertiary students preparing to become English teachers. This is an exciting opportunity and while preparing, thinking about the idealistic and the pragmatic, it became evident to me that the experience of organising to teach at the university... Read More

Teachers and Social Media

“If you can’t dance a step, you can’t teach it, and if you can’t teach it – we might as well all pack up and go home.” from STRICTLY BALLROOM cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Dell’s Official Flickr Page I read Steve Wheeler’s PLN post, ‘Tools of the trade’ this weekend and it made me wonder, what real penetration... Read More

Twitter and Edmodo in Denmark

  You may have read these musings about hashtags and citizenship after the #LondonRiots. This post is a brief reflective piece about a series of lessons with classes and Professional Development sessions with staff at Viborg Katedralskole (check the new website) focusing on student engagement, Twitter and Edmodo. It has been very enjoyable for me to be back in classrooms... Read More

All I need to know about Twitter I learned at kindergarten

Thanks to Prof. Steve Wheeler for his post about the ‘art of twitter’ and this slideshare below. All I need to know about Twitter I learned at kindergarten View more presentations from Steve Wheeler Slider image: cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo by xotoko: http://flickr.com/photos/xotoko/2382680812/  Read More

The hashtag and the citizen

The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. Twitter Help Centre   Following the #LondonRiots or #UKRiots hashtag on twitter has made me think again about how to explore the important and relatively new concepts (in classrooms anyway) of tag, metadata, metalanguage and folksonomy.... Read More

GOOGLE+

On the road for more than a month now, I have not been paying as much attention to my social media networks as usual and was a little horrified to see that foolishly I had two Google+ accounts. That’s to0 many circles. How did this happen? A colleague needed my (not often used) Gmail account to organise an invite in the first days Google+ was available. I was barely paying... Read More

Teacher-librarians: Digital Communication Tools (Part II)

In the age of ‘infowhelm’ choosing the appropriate digital communication tools – to stay in-the-loop and professionally connected – is essential for any professional person, especially teacher-librarians. A teacher-librarian can make a start on developing a Personal Learning Network (PLN) by following these steps at their own pace: finding several excellent... Read More