I’ll come to listen to your parade of movers and shakers, spend the night comfortably cosseted in clean linen. Thanks for the food, flight and great speakers. You’re obviously serious and I must admit, I’m flattered that you want me to come to your do. Although it makes me sound a bit ungrateful (and I’m …
Author archives: Derek
10 Great reasons to love Web Learning
Whether I’m designing a web site, developing a digital learning programme or demonstrating my knowledge / stupidity with my network, I set out to understand and simplify peoples digital experience so that people can make better use of the web. Here’s a list of 10 great reasons to work with me. (PDF 276KB) Image generated …
Potholes ahead – caution advised
Computer literacy training, employing experts and certification are three potholes on the info-bahn that might damage your institutions attempts to effectively use ICT (information and communications technology). Goveia and Soule’s article argues that if we are to foster ongoing and sustainable use of learning technologies in schools, there are three common “potholes” that we need …
TeachMeet
TeachMeet is an informal gathering of those curious about teaching and technology. Anyone can share great ideas they’ve trialled in their classrooms, ask important questions or simply sign up to take part in learning conversations. Both Primary and Secondary teachers are welcome to take part in an informal and fun meeting. You can come along …
Passing notes on the IWB back channel
As an Interactive White Board (IWB) newbie and the mercenary Ed Tech man, I thought it a good idea to master the newly installed giant touch screens to prove my learning tech credentials. It’s quite common to call IWB’s Smartboards, but that’s like calling a vacuum cleaner a Hoover or a spreadsheet program Excel. You …
Recipe for a connected educator
Give your teacher a computer, preferably a cheap one, install software and other learning technologies and then when they complete your introductory course (with gold embossed certificate), reward their efforts with a voucher for a months free Internet connection. Simple – we’ve got a connected educator. Or maybe not. I’ve set up a straw man proposal, and I’m …
mLearning
Frustrated students are starting to doubt the future of progress. For the past two weeks I’ve inflicted a Mobile code hunt on their them, in attempt to demonstrate that mobile phones have potential outside the walls of the classroom. They’ve sat, squinted and swore for an hour trying to figure out how to download a QR …
Differentiated Tasks
William M. Ferriter’s article is Why Teachers Should Try Twitter is more about differentiated instruction than Twitter. When I read it, I thought – here’s a note to self – time to explore how technology can be leveraged so that “students of different abilities, interest or learning needs” can use different learning paths so that …
Digital Pocket Knives
I’ve been wondering, when the mobile phone has shown such an amazing penetration rate, why students aren’t using their mobile phones as a digital “pocket knife” for personal and lifelong learning? Although our Internet penetration here in South Africa is disturbingly low, we are not “backwards” with cell phone adoption. The penetration rate in South …
Students networking with Students
There’s a range of people in my Ed Tech PGCE class this year. Some are very sussed, and others are finding computers a frightening prospect. This morning a small co-hort of about 10 PGCE students (many of them very new to computers) joined me while I demonstrated copying, cropping and adding effects to their class …