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 …
Category archives: Discover
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 …
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 …
I don’t get Twitter
Some thoroughly confused PGCE students of mine have admitted that they just “don’t get Twitter“. That’s fine. Your confusion over Twitter is shared by many. Media literacies are determined by our social identities. We start reading books because we see others reading. We get an e-mail address because other people want to contact us. We …
Pecha Kucha Pietermaritzburg?
Pecha Kucha, Japanese for “chit-chat”, is a presentation format that combines business meeting and slam poetry and turns endless Power Point presentations into an art form and a competitive sport. Initially introduced by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, two Architects from Tokyo’s Klein-Dytham Architecture that were hosting an event for young designers to meet, network, …
Information and Confusion
I love the rough and ready index cards that Jessica Hagy uses with her “Venn Dadagrams” at Indexed. Her Needles and Haystacks graph (slide 3)perfectly captures the befuddled brain after a long morning of course introductions. AV / Ed Tech Introduction View more presentations from Derek Moore. To finish off their befuddlement, I hauled out …
Linking spaces to information
I’ve accessed my blog via my phone’s camera using this QR code. And while this sounds impossibly complicated, I’ve just learned how this works in the last half an hour. Instructions QR codes combine simple creation with easy access to QR code readers. Create the code using a QR-Code Generator and then point your mobile …
Making the ‘Net Work
Social Media does not have to be filtered or restricted. With an enlightened policy a school, its teachers and administrators can pro-actively embrace Web 2.0 technology and enhance communication and understanding within a school. Infographic inspired by Oneupweb Listen!
Web Wednesday Chit Chat and Workshops
I’d like to experiment with hosting and running a set of alternate bi-monthly chit chats and workshops for people that want to share their digital stories and extend their use of the net. These events will take place on the first Wednesday of the month and will collectively be known as WebWed. Chit Chat At …