An Expat Educator in Asia

There was a lot of comment on lists today about this Sydney Morning Herald Article entitled “Phone a friend in exams” It is such an indicator of how pedestrian we are in schools when a large publication newspaper picks up such an obvious 21st Century skill as being able to access external information to answer [...]

If you sometimes follow the frustration of Jeremy’s dad on the Zits cartoon strip and you think that today’s postliterate children have increasingly short attention spans, you are going to really relate to this comic strip.

It must have been back in around 1998 when I first met Gary Stager. That was in a small seminar room at the Fremantle yacht club. I have to say that he was not an instant hit with me due to his style of speaking but his message was on the money. Since then, Gary [...]

Thanks to Jennifer Carrier Dorman on Cliotech, I was informed about the Free offering of Animoto for educators. This is a welcome extension to what is a fantastic Web2.0 tool for learning.
What I really loved about Jennifer’s post, however, was that she went on to mention how you can set up groups of students [...]

This posting by an Aussie teacher reminded me so much of my approach to trying to balance the wonder and excitement of access to the internet with a need for respect for other people’s access to a shared resource and trying to provide good infrastructure for learning. I had to reproduce it for you here:
Our [...]

I recently had the good fortune to listen to one of Alan November’s podcasts featuring Sichuan native Yong Zhao, now a Michigan State University distinguished professor of educational psychology and technology. Yong Zhao was speaking about a game he was creating to make learning Putonghua a fun activity for kids.
I was very interested and did [...]

Thanks to a post on a list by Stephen Loosley, I went to the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day site. I couldn’t help but think what a great inspiration to the curiosity of students looking at one of these pics on the EWB in the classroom each day might be.
If you have never been [...]

This week I posted a reflection on the exit skills students should have when leaving a learning institution in the 21st Century. I think that this is great place for schools to begin discussion about the use of texts, curricula, educational technology, chalk, indeed anything for learning. My post made reference to the great initial [...]

I had a bit of a rant on a mailing list yesterday when I saw a request from an Australian School Administrator who was asking to visit a 1:1 school to see something in action for the first time. I am amazed that MLC Melbourne embarked on the journey of 1:1 learning over 25 years [...]

After my posting about the low-lifes who form anonymous online groups for the sole purpose of provoking strangers online and scoring “lulz” this week, I thought that I should balance the posts with an article about the potential power of the web to promote peace in our often troubled world. The thing I really like [...]