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Who’s in charge?After twenty-nine years of Tomorrow’s Schools, are decisions really being made by the community?

A few months ago, I finished my Master of Business Administration. It was one of the biggest challenges of my life. One of the artefacts of this is a modest research paper. A few people have asked to read it. If you dare, please find it attached. Who’s in charge

Credit Card security, big data and Burger King

I got a call from ASB Bank. They had detected “unusual activity” on my credit card. After verifying that it was indeed the bank (and not a scam), I worked out that I’d lost my card. Someone had found it and spent $2 at Z Energy then $3.20 at Burger King, then more at BK, […]

Is yellow square or round?

“All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask – half our great theological and metaphysical problems – are like that.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed In my role, people often ask me to do things for them that seem really […]

Get students started with collaborative notes in Google Docs

Question from twitter that deserves a long-form answer: “I’m trying to use Google Docs with a low ability year 10 class but I’m not using Teacher Dashboard. Am I wasting my time? I want them to have content notes available to them at all times. It’s proving tricky!” Simplest possible If your students don’t have school […]

Just in time – notes from this morning’s #TTSed breakfast

This morning I shared breakfast with some teachers. We shared our experiences with using Google Docs in the classroom, Teacher Dashboard and BYOD. I was able to share a few ideas and I told them that I’d email them some notes. I changed my mind: I’ve decided to blog the ideas. BYOD: – check that […]

School Report – does anyone care?

Mr13 came bouncing home this afternoon. He had a letter from his rugby coach. It told him what he did well this year, what he needs to work on, and which famous rugby player he is most like. He was encouraged to watch the famous player closely and emulate him. This all reminds me of […]

#edchatnz – I got memed

If you follow me on twitter you’ll know that it was a busy weekend. I was at a conference for teachers who are on twitter. As the post conference dust settles, there are hundreds of blog posts reflecting on the event. I got tagged in one, and now I have to write a reflection. Here […]

The Classroom as a Dinner Party

Recently I’ve begun to see everything within a food metaphor – this all started with my Learning Is A Banquet post. Can we go a  little deeper? What if teacher were the hosts of a pot luck dinner party and the students were the guests? If guests show up with nothing to contribute, they’re still welcome. […]

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The teaching profession needs to undergo fundamental change

Are computers programming our children or are we teaching our children how to program computers? I bought Miss11 an iPad for Christmas. She takes it to school and uses it for learning. Maths Games, Spelling Games and research are most of what she does in year 6. This is surprisingly good. You couldn’t motivate her […]