I wanted to sit down after three days of uLearn - and reflect on what I’ve seen, heard, felt and experienced. It’s been an interesting 3 days - on balance for me personally an uneven experience, but one that I’m still considering and mulling over. As I’ve sat down, I’ve checked my twitter feed, and from my mate Paul, this beautiful video emerges. There is so much analog beauty in this video, it’s pure and wonderful. ...
This is a challenging blog post “Wheel or Carousel?” (2025 Update - this blog post is now offline and I couldn’t find anything via the Wayback Machine) The sentiment in the video clip in the post is powerful and honest, and I’ve used it in a presentation to the staff. It’s often easy to sell technology as ‘new’ even when it’s a re-invention; always calming the ‘itch’ to improve learning and teaching for the present, at least until something else comes along. ...
Isn’t that what we’re meant to do as teachers - keep the important stuff, the key things real? Air New Zealand and the All Blacks have done a fantastic job of taking some really key, but often forgotten messages and made them real. The message has always been relevant - but this new video is a great example of how the metaphor is the message.
For some reason yesterday as I sat reading the various stories about these National Standards being announced - (they even shutdown the nzcurriculum website for a few hours to sort it all out!) - this small phrase came to mind. “This too shall pass.” I couldn’t recall if it was song or a story I’d read - so went searching for the wikipedia entry - and it made me smile. “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! ...
I’m not sure of the direct advantages of this as an app in teaching and learning yet, but it’s great to see the versatility of the opensource model. We currently run OpenOffice on our Macbooks and classroom PCs - to allow students to open files regardless of whether they are working in Windows XP or in OS X. This kid friendly version sounds like it will be lighter and more visually attractive. I look forward to seeing what the “specific adaptations for education” are. ...
Cory Doctorow’s article from Locus really nails a number of issues that apply to the writing we do in class. If we’re to teach writing as a skill, it’s the doing of the skill that matters. “Short, regular work schedule When I’m working on a story or novel, I set a modest daily goal — usually a page or two — and then I meet it every day, doing nothing else while I’m working on it. It’s not plausible or desirable to try to get the world to go away for hours at a time, but it’s entirely possible to make it all shut up for 20 minutes. ...
Beethoven’s 5th symphony visualised. Wonderful. Just wonderful. Beethoven 5th Symphony (No. 5, graphical score animation, allegro)
I’m back in NZ. Karen and Isabella are in the UK. I miss them a little today - it’s great being home and being our own house - but I’m knocking around the place a little bit. It’s all good being able to go for a beer with a mate after work, and sleeping in on a weekend. But cooking for one is just odd now. And the house is so quiet. ...
Agendas are due out on Wednesday. Twenty five written agendas to guide 25 minute conversations with parents who just really want to know what their child can work on, and what they can do for them. At week 6 in the term, I have to assess work for a conversation at week 9 - and have to give up class time get the students to prepare their bit. Tomorrow we have an orchestra playing for an hour, 8 of my students will be at Eastern Zone Cross Country, on Thursday it’s the science fair, and then with my half day of ICT release I’ll be out working on the server so we can send out the 15 Macbooks. Friday will be my photography class and teaching languages. We have hui on Friday morning. ...
On the Wired Science site, they’ve got a series of videos showing how we’re changing the surface of the planet. Some very cool images, that make you think and consider.
Over on artofmanliness - there’s a great series of interviews entitled “So You Want My Job”, where they ask people in different professions to answer a few questions. The latest one was from a high school teacher. Anyway - I took exception to a couple of comments in the article, and added this to the comments. Consider it my rant for the weekend. As a male teacher myself here in New Zealand, I was looking forward to reading this interview. To my mind, teaching is a noble profession. Society needs men who have these attributes to stand in front of our children, and be their teachers and mentors. ...
It’s been an interesting week. Started off last weekend getting involved in some copyright issues over on PublicAddress - which made me think some about what we’re doing at school. Or not doing. Then Monday was grandparents day - with about 8 or 10 grandparents coming to spend the morning with students in my class. It was a bit of a challenge, as we had an extra 150 bodies around the school, but the students were really generous with their time and helped out. I invited those in the class to share what it was like when they were at school. Stories were told of walking to school, drinking warm milk, of being hit for being left handed, specifically, whacked with a wooden pencil case until their hands bled - by the teacher! Our school hui was full with all those extra people, and the Year 3&4 students did a fine job. ...
The new national standards are now available online via the Ministry of Education. 2025 update. This URL is now a 404. Oddly enough, the Wayback Machine has 14 snapshots of the URL - but they all lead to deadlinks. The Ministry of Education has this archive, with much of the documentation from that era. I’m a little amused as to why they’re capitalised, as in “National Standards” - the proper noun-ing of what is already happening. Is that double-speak? ...
This clip via Vimeo: “MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set.” made me wonder quite a bit about the demands of using digital content in the classroom, and how groups like the MPAA and NZFACT seek to be taken seriously when they propose this method as an acceptable, fair use of digital content. I posted it to publicaddress and was asked to explain what I thought would be a use for copy protected content. ...
A winter term - full of rain, sleet, wind. Miniball Speech competitions Maths English Groups Spelling Languages - Thai Enrichment - Make or Break/Digital Photography Swimming Art…. Integrated studies - Geography Mid-term reports Parent teacher interviews ICT - Starting up Moodle as an intranet Building work to work around Green footprint I’m bound to have missed something.
Although I understand Mr. Roughan’s job is to provide grits for the masses to chew on - I do take issue with a few of his points. His article, entitled: ’ Expel protectionism from schools’ was on the NZ Herald site last Saturday. I only read it after Russell Brown picked it apart over on publicaddress. Here then are my thoughts that I also posted on the publicaddress message boards. ======= Although I understand Mr. Roughan’s job is to provide grits for the masses to chew on - I do take issue with a few of his points. ...
This made me smile. Usually reality TV/talent quests are utter rubbish, but this is one of those gentle surprises that reminds you that decent people can have the most beautiful of ability, the most genuine of hearts and can break down even the jaded and bored among us. At the 3:22 minute mark Simon Cowell seems to almost be in love - it’s quite astonishing. And smile. Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009. ...
At 6:40am Tuesday morning, our baby girl arrived - Isabella Molly Kong, all 8 pounds, long wrinkly fingers and big eyes. She took 21 hours of labour to arrive, and I’m still in shock and awe at not just wee Isabella, but Karen’s strength and serenity through the experience. We were due on 27th - so we were getting a bit antsy. Karen’s water’s broke on Monday at 7:45, and we were at the hospital by 9:30. She managed the process herself for about 10 hours, with no intervention,(the pool in the birthing suite was brilliant!) before taking gas. She was fully dilated at 8:30pm and all set to push and we did for almost 2 hours. ...
About twelve months ago I started this, in part to learn myself some, in part to track be able to look back at where I’d come from. But also inspired by some words from Maya Angelou. This year, after a superb break and in the midst of a rather glorious summer, I was inspired by these words - a text this time from a good friend. Who it has to be said, is no Maya Angelou, but his thoughts made me smile and feel honoured to be a teacher. ...