July 2011 Blog Posts (44)

The word of education is awash with data – particularly testing results. While I personally have significant reservations about both the use and usefulness of much of this data, due to a combination of   the harm it can do to students, teachers, parents and schools as well as the often unsound assumptions upon which it is based, it has to be acknowledged that not everyone shares my views.  However, I will  put my concerns aside  for the moment and share this video explaining the biggest…

Christopher Johnson’s new book, “Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little,” reviewed yesterday in the New York Times, is a “guide to verbal strategies that make very short messages effective, interesting, and memorable.”  ‘Big Style,’ (a term the author uses that roughly equates to what my father calls ‘the grammar police’) confounds the set of necessary rules that allow readers to make…

What is an estimator?

An estimator is a person that writes auto repair estimates on vehicles that have been involved in an accident. The estimator must understand the basic car design and know the nomenclature of a vehicle. The estimator must also have good communication skills as they deal with customers on a daily basis. Not only does the estimator have to communicate with customers, but they will also be the contact person for the insurance companies, shop…

“CT 2011” is this week in Boston – I hope I get to see some of you there!

I’m excited about this year’s Campus Technology conference for several reasons. In addition to the usual variety of Break Out Sessions, and Technology Seminars, there’s an opening keynote by Michael Wesch (known to many through his wonderful ”…

A week ago my knowledge of the education system of Finland was, to be honest,  almost non-existent.   I knew that they were consistently ranked number one of all “Western” countries in PISA testing but had no idea how they did it.  Then, last weekend, I attended a keynote address by Professor Teemu Leinonen, Professor of New Media Design and Learning at the Media Lab of…

As an "insider", I'm privy to a little of what is going on at EnglishCentral.  The team has really been working overtime and coming up with some fantastic changes that will be in a new release. 

Here's my insider's sneak preview! 

I hope you like the new look and…

Next Saturday I'm doing a presentation abouit QR Codes in T&L at the free online conference the Reform Symposium ... 

My session is midnight Thailand time ... but much more sensible if you are in Europe or the Americas ... it is 10:00am California time and 6:00pm in London

The online Reform Symposium is taking place using the webinar platform ...…

I recently read a post from Andrew Marcinek, an educator who I greatly respect and often agree with. Are We Chasing Technology or Mastering It? His post however caused me, for the first time after several years of connection, to disagree with him. In his post he asserts that we…

This blog post saw a lot of traffic yesterday when I put it up, so I have to assume the interest level is high - figure'd I should share it here too! - KW

A mix of web apps that can help you make presentations that are fun, eye catching, and engaging (great for students too)!

 …

Hello all,

I have had my enthusiasm for ICT refired by this course and find myslef once again using tools that I have not used for a while - eg podcasts. The use of Skype is a good one, but is affected on occasion by issues of speed (bandwidth) here in Melbourne! We seem to have a very slow boradband here in Australia. BUT I do use it when needed. It does open up my students to global points of view.

Hope you all have found the course as enriching as i have!

The Chrysalis community learning centers project in Africa has been launched within the framework of the capacity building for the Education For All (EFA) program with the financial and moral support of UNESCO.

The objectives of the project are among others:-

1. To eliminate redundant costs and pockets of development success and failures from town to town, focusing on the learning needs of a town’s small groups----the by product is learning that is 100% relevant to…

“Capitalism is the worst economic system in the world – except for everything else we’ve tried.”

 Pat Dorsey – MorningStar.com

Ambient Insight, founded in 2004, is an international market research firm that uses predictive analytics to identify revenue opportunities for global eLearning and Mobile…

It is common when blogging  to re-post video that is current, up to date, modern.  I’m breaking with that trend on this post by linking to a clip dating from 1960.

 Marshall McLuhan was a key thinker in the early days of electric  media – when television and radio were emerging forces.  He achieved near guru status with his concept of “The Global Village”.   The…

For the past few weeks I have been trying to keep my head above water in the gigantic sea of technology that is available to teachers and students. It's almost more than I can handle. It is no surprise that many teachers get frustrated and don't want to make any changes to their daily routine by including technology. I have always been able to work through technology to figure things out, but I know there are those out there who hit the first stumbling block and give up. There is just so…