Dan Willingham’s The False Promise of Tech in Schools has a number of salient points, that it’s useful to remind ourselves to pay attention too. My thoughts then. Our gut feelings/intuition about what makes for useful learning experiences, have been skewed/led by the ed-tech memes that we’ve allowed to flow across education. Those same ed-tech memes have flowed into education by those who ultimately need to ensure they meet their sales targets. Not that there’s anything wrong with that per se - just that we need to be OK and recognize that’s why the ed-tech is there. It’s not, despite all the lovely marketing words to the contrary, just “for the kids”. Our ability to make decisions on our personal use of tech, doesn’t automagically translate or scale into useful decisions about the use of tech in a classroom, a school, a district or indeed the entire education system. How we evaluate our decisions, regardless of how carefully we implement the ed-tech, needs to be completed with openness and humility - “and the courage to admit something isn’t working”. In education we don’t do point 6 well enough. Point 6 is really difficult for educational leaders in a high-stakes, high-cost environment, that’s self-defined itself as “future-focused” - in a society and culture where “future-focused” sits upon us as a Jetsons vs Tesla vs Google wraparound reality, all embedded nicely in a Jony Ives designed blankscape. If we choose tools that don’t appear like point 8 - are we still what we believe and say we are, are we still performing our duty of care for our students, and meeting the expectations of parents and communities? If we choose the tools of today, to meet the needs of those in front of us, are we still valid as schools, regardless of our ed-tech/future-focused appearances?

“Aesthetics are your problem and mine. Nobody else’s. The fact of the matter is, I want everything we do — that I do personally, that our office does — to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks that it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. ...

I grew up flying, born in NZ but flew away when I was 3, lived across SE Asia until I was 18. My passports were filled with stamps, with extensions and with places transited through. I flew to boarding school at 5, and by 11 was the seasoned traveller, responsible for managing passports for younger students. Dad organised for my brother and I to return from NZ to Manila once, on Air Nauru. We island hopped our way up the Pacific, the only 2 passengers to go the entire way to Manila, with stops in Guam, Nauru, and the Solomon Islands and possibly other points. I think at one point my brother got to sit in the cockpit for landing. ...

On Maintaining Following a lead from Courtney’s post this essay Hail the Maintainers really resonated. Entire societies have come to talk about innovation as if it were an inherently desirable value, like love, fraternity, courage, beauty, dignity, or responsibility. Innovation-speak worships at the altar of change, but it rarely asks who benefits, to what end? A focus on maintenance provides opportunities to ask questions about what we really want out of technologies. What do we really care about? What kind of society do we want to live in? Will this help get us there? We must shift from means, including the technologies that underpin our everyday actions, to ends, including the many kinds of social beneficence and improvement that technology can offer. ...

Rowan sent met this message yesterday… @timoslimo you called it… https://t.co/8cKAlX3U7E — Rowan Simpson (@rowansimpson) April 29, 2016 Which was in relation to this tweet I sent to him during the Masters. @rowansimpson Also, realised during this tournament that Vine should do a commercial deal to become highlights platform for the PGA.April 11, 2016 I have an old Winston McCarthy LP, with his rugby commentary, and I was thinking of that recording, and the stories told by masters like him, in that time, on what sport was. And reflecting on the social and community nature of sport then. And now. ...

It was the waves, the dull sound, not a roar, but a rumble. A sound dissipated by the distance we were from the surf. Rolling in, deep, smooth swells. Breaking onto rocks, jagged and bare. That’s what I watched as I stood in the bright sun today, Zara sleeping on my back. At the Ataturk Memorial - for the small service commemorating ANZAC day. I’ve always liked this service, more than the Dawn Service. It’s smaller, more intimate - and in previous years far less organised. ...

Read Do not Lead, from Aaron Webber, chairman and CEO at Webber Investments is well worth the 5 minutes it takes to read - key points as follows: Be very very good at the technical assignment and competencies that you need to perform. Be humble. Enough said. Following on from number one and two, let the results you produce and the comments you make speak for themselves. Speak less and listen more so that when you do say something, it is something worth listening to. ...

In 1996, I moved to Auckland to work for an audio-visual company. I was 22 and my starting salary was about $45,000NZD. In the same year Kobe Bryant moved to LA and started playing for the Lakers. He was 17 and his starting salary was $1,015,000USD. In 1997 I bet a co-worker that my Lakers would beat the Bulls in the NBA Finals. It was a silly bet, but I believed I had a chance, coz of this kid called Kobe and this monster called Shaq being on my team. ...

Jordan Spieth’s quadruple bogey seven on the 12th hole at Augusta is dominating all the headlines right now. His efforts on that hole, will be probably more widely discussed than those of Danny Willett - who was brilliantly accompanied by his brother PJ Willett on Twitter. What’s probably going to be missed though is the fact that Spieth went on to birdie two more holes in his round of 18. In fact he birdied the 13th, the very next hole. ...

I’m really enjoying listening to Bill’s re-booted podcast after his exit from the ESPN stable. He always has a great way of eliciting wide ranging conversations from his guests. As someone with an interest in current events/politics and sports this episode with Olbermann, looked like a cracker, considering the US primary craziness and the fact they’ve both recently “left” ESPN. At the 21:20 mark, they discuss how the landscape of media has changed due to social media and Simmons says: ...

This came across my timeline tonight. .@h0d3r has perhaps the most distressing complete twitter account history I’ve ever seen — Drew Harry (@drewwww) November 20, 2014 And I was struck by what a fantastic opportunity it’d be for a teacher to place this tweet in front of students with some challenge questions. If you could interview Hossein Derakhshan, what would you ask him? Consider how life would have changed for Hossein. What could you learn about Iran - from a social, cultural, political perspective - in the time that he was imprisoned. Follow Hossein on Twitter, and read his timeline since this slice of his history. Write a biography of his time since he’s been released. Explore the blogosphere of Iranian writers. Explore the world they capture - choose a particular blogger, or a select a series of bloggers who write about a particular topic, and consider how they are similar/different to NZ. As someone who’s no longer in a classroom, I’m probably not following all the “proper” ways of aligning tasks with recognised assessment methods - but I love the small but incredible story captured in this one tweet - and see it as a fantastic way of expanding student’s horizons. ...

It’s been interesting watching the debate since the Flag Consideration project revealed their four alternatives. Personally I was pretty disinterested in the initial process, because it appeared, to me at least, to be a simple vanity project, run by a Prime Minister, who didn’t like having to sit under an Australian flag at various international gatherings. As a political process, it seemed merely a rebranding one. The numbers that turned up to the public meetings reflected that perception I think. Guy Williams made an appearance at one and the resulting piece from the Jono and Ben Show, really captures the strange Kiwi-ness of the whole thing. ...

There is a moment in Louis CK’s conversation with Conan, in which he says: Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it… sadness is poetic, and you’re lucky to live sad moments. I thought of that as I listened to this beautiful piece from Radiolab, some final reflections from Oliver Sacks, on his life, his relationships and his wonderful ability to see the world with constant curiosity and empathy. ...

A few weeks ago I was asked to be part of a Digital Inclusion panel discussion at NetHui. The theme for this year’s Nethui was “the Internet is everybody’s business”. The 3 day event covered a range of issues including education, privacy, security, copyright and a particular focus on digital inclusion. The education forum on Day Zero was hosted by Mark Osborne and Andrew Cowie of CORE Education, and was well attended. The focus here was on ‘Equity, Inclusivity, Purpose, Passion’ and there was a range of challenging and useful presentations. There were speakers from a range of providers in the education sector, including Connected Learning Advisory and National Library, as well as teachers like Caro Bush, Kimberley Barrs and Diana Wilkes. ...

“This is the part of what I was learning, from early childhood on - that to journey into the wild spaces where profound questions are given a violent and inexorable response, that to travail through fire and return again - these are the experiences which determine the making of a man. To be a man, I would need to walk into the thunder and hail of a world stripped of its reason, just as others in my family had done before me. ...

The 7.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal over the weekend has been rightly covered by many news agencies, and there are appeals for donations and support on Campbell Live, Facebook and a wide variety of other channels. I spent this evening catching up with Tim Mcnamara, who was one of the key individuals behind the crowd created eq.org.nz response during the Christchurch earthquake. Tim’s continued to be involved in humanitarian support and the way in which digital tools can be used to make a real difference to people on the ground in disaster situations. ...

Dear Mike, I want to ask you to stop. Please just stop. 2025 - The Wayback Machine’s copy of that link is viewable, but the media is not. This is the Youtube copy. Useful to note that the BSA ruled against this piece - with minimal consequence. I get your schtick - your banter, your flippant disregard for others, your sniffiness for that which you stereotype as “PC gone mad” - that thing you do where you listen to others with a slight sneer, and then gently dismiss their opinion by expressing yours last and with a measure of wordy erudition. ...

With a hat tip to Nat’s Four Short Links and Ory Okolloh’s “#SundayReads” via twitter, I thought I’d post a random set of things I’ve been reading, viewing, thinking on and listening each week. With A Read: The F-35 is still FUBAR The first point, from an educator’s perspective, just seems to be a symptom of using testing incorrectly, as part of a political process. But the rest of the flaws in this programme are stunning. ...

Today I took part in an enjoyable webinar via BigMarker.com - entitled What it Means to ‘See’ Your Students presented by @elizabethaself Here’s her blurb from the site - where the session is recorded, and I’d recommend you make some time to view and listen. In the first half of this session, I will share my current research on clinical simulations and how simulations can be used to develop cultural competence among both pre- and in-service teachers. I will walk teachers through one such simulation in order to better understand the potential dangers of “culture blindness.” In the second half of the session, I will work to help mathematics teachers think about what they can do in their own classrooms to better “see” their students in ways that support mathematics outcomes as well as healthy identity development. ...

This article - Dev Discomfort - is written to reflect the pressures and stresses on being a developer - but it reflects very well what it means to be a teacher in an education system increasingly being flooded with technology and tools. “I feel like my relationship with my tools has gotten flipped—instead of them existing to serve my needs, I feel like I have to improve myself to be able to use them. … The prerequisites have gotten so large that it feels like I can’t even get good at something before the whole rickety system has been replaced by something new. Not necessarily better in ways that matter to me, mind you. Just new.” ...