An Expat Educator in Asia

I think it is a given that young people are going to connect online. All of the research indicates that young people are flocking to the free online communities like facebook at an unprecedented rate. As educators, parents, concerned citizens, the big question for us all is not “should our kids be online in [...]

I remember when I was at a particular school once where we had a number of incidents where staff members sent inappropriate or slightly unprofessional emails using the school email server and it came back to bite them. As a result, we spent a bit of time working on a staff policies. I have shared [...]

There are a few reasons why Mark Prensky’s Digital Native term has not been helpful in a school context. The one I want to focus on here is the misperception that it gives some educators, including school leadership, that the students that they have in front of them know a lot about using online [...]

I have just finished listening to a podcast of Australian Radio Current Affairs program, Background Briefing where it discussed the issue of the proposed country wide internet filter the government plans to put in place via ISPs. The ABC does not keep the podcasts online for more than a few weeks so I urge you [...]

I have been thinking a lot about Curriculum recently. I had a discussion with Jamie McKenzie when he was back in town last week about his thoughts about the training for the IB PYP Programme which is inquiry based. I think Jamie and I agreed that in the rush for schools to say that they [...]

There were a few comments sent to me personally about the post I put up yesterday about teachers and students “friending” each other on Facebook and other social networks. I can understand that many teachers were reluctant to use the comment function on the blog but I have to say that we desperately need to [...]

Interesting discussion on the Oz Teachers list on teachers “befriending” students on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
I have copied a summary here for your interest:

Some think it is okay to include students as friends but are very circumspect; others think that it is crossing the line between private and professional lives, particularly with current [...]

In a previous post, I mentioned about the fact that US based Virtual High School has been working with the IBO since 2004 to perfect a model for online teaching of IB Diploma courses. The first trial was highly successful and concluded in May 2006. Since that time, VHS has run limited offerings of the [...]

Maybe it is just me but I increasingly encounter some schools in the Asian region that are doing everything that they can to shut out communities. I have blogged recently about the conference I am trying to setup. I tried to get onto one particular forum that I know connects educators across Hong Kong schools [...]

A very big part of what keeps me trying to support classroom change in a region of the world that is sooo…… slow to adopt change is my network. Being linked to others in places that are moving ahead and sharing stories, good and bad, with them is a great way to feel that I [...]