Ted-Ed and all that

There’s been a bit of bite-back recently around the ‘Ted-Ed’ concept and the usefulness, relevance or otherwise of the whole shooting match of powerful people spouting powerful ideas. Apparently, they censored a Ted Talk that was critical of the inequity at the heart of American society. That idea sure ain’t going anywhere fast. Gary Stager [...]

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Flashcards+

I’m always a little envious of those kids with piles of flip cards. Bundled up in big wads, encircled with rubber bands. ‘This is what I need to know’, they seem to say. Here is the contained knowledge. They sit at their desks and spread them before them, almost smugly. So, I wanted to have [...]

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Ipad or notebook as a classroom tool?

Will the classroom notebook computer go the way of the Dodo! (I know, lame link!) One of the things I been pondering over likely is whether the iPad can really be a replacement for the notebook computer as the default classroom device. I’ve taught in a one-to-one laptop program for over 15 years now and [...]

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The power of the voice

                                          I had one of those, ‘thank goodness that effort wasn’t  totally wasted’, moments a couple of weeks ago when doing some revision work with literature students to do with podcasting.   Teaching the poetry [...]

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Living in the future

Someone sent me this clip below from one of my favourite movies, 2001: A Space Oddysey and thought it looked like they were looking at Ipads (and that movie was made in 1969) I must admit that I don’t remember that scene from the movie, but it did make me think about the tools and technologies [...]

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The iPad trolley

I know it’s somehow inevitable, maybe even a good sign in some ways, but I was also kind of sad to see this ad in a teacher magazine today: the iPad trolley. Coming soon. Surely of all the 1-1 tools we’ve yet seen the iPad is the most personal and personalisable device? Surely this s [...]

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Writing on the IPad

Had my first experience of using the iPad in a real life writing session this week in a longish briefing on the Australian Curriculum. Three hours or so in an uncomfortable little seat all squashed up I was pretty glad I wasn’t balancing a full sized widescreen Dell or something and was interested to see [...]

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Living and working with an Ipad

My wife works for a publishing company, in sales. She’s on the road a lot talking to people in bookshops and also health stores, new-age emporiums and anyone else who’ll listen. Times are tough in the book trade, and some of that’s to do with e-books, e-readers and the move to digital. But that’s another [...]

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Ipad Vs Notebook Computer

Since I blogged a little while ago about how I didn’t see the Ipad as a primary learning tool in a senior classroom (say Year 8 upwards?) I just keep noticing educators who say it can be just that. Some of the most recent schools I’ve seen taking this approach are right here in Australia, in [...]

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Ipad 2

Okay, I admit it, I want one. I’ve been hanging  out for the duration of the Ipad based on the sage advice of many tech-head friends who proclaim solemnly; ‘thou shalt not buy version 1 of any Apple product’. And I listened. And in a couple of weeks I’m going to be grabbing version 2, [...]

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