The Learning Project at St Mary's » professional development

BBBPodcast – our final breakfast

Greg Elliott — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 11:33:59 +0000

My colleagues will soon be famous. Tune in to this great podcast, where educators respond to the question “How will student learning be improved or enriched with these Web 2.0 tools?” The answers were broad, thoughtful and varied. Enjoy!

Download Our Last Breakfast.

Proud as punch!!

Greg Elliott — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:53:24 +0000

We have come to the end of another Big Byte Breakfast course – 5 weeks of dazzling learning at an alarming speed. The presentations of the project by the course participants was mind blowing, considering that a few weeks earlier, many did not know their blogs from their wikis and thought RSS was a sports car. What became immediately apparent was that teachers are expert at spotting potential. These Web2.0 tools sprang to life in the hands of experienced educators, and many took on a life that their creators may have found surprising.

You can see the complete Show and Tell at our Next-Ed Wikispace here.

One of the favourites of the morning was Professor Stcky-beakers’ Toon-do cartoon of a Science Fair Project Proposal. Click here to see the cartoon.

Your opinion is irrelevant

Greg Elliott — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 02:02:32 +0000

Sounds harsh, but if you are a teacher and your opinion goes something like this: “Technology has its place, but all of this MySpace and blog stuff is just a disruption to real learning” then your opinion is anachronistic, irrelevant, or worse, unethical. Your students’ world exists on the other side of a significant gulf of understanding and experience. You, dear teacher, are receding from their view.

Ever since the Expanding Learning Horizons conference in Lorne, VIC this month, I have been thinking about how best to challenge my colleagues about their own learning and about their digital lifestyle beyond the classroom. I am delighted to say that we are moving, and not slowly, towards a narrowing of that chasm. So watch this space as we move with confidence into a next-ed environment.