The Future Of Education

The future of education is this: kids learning loads of content – the right content at the right time. They will learn in the best way – some of it they will read from narrative, some will be abstract interactive media/charts/games. All of it will be engaging, brilliantly produced, age/culture appropriate. The future will be […]

Blogging for teachers

Benefits of blogging Reflective practice – thinking about what you do, why you it, how you do it and whether it works. Ideas sharing – you’ve probably got some ideas that no one has ever heard of. It’s a shame to see those ideas go to waste. An end of professional isolation – if you’re […]

iPhone mail tips

I’ve never had a desk job before. The experience of being at my computer monitoring email (and a hundred other things) is a new one to me. I set up my work email on my iPhone for various reasons, but it quickly became tired of seeing the email arrive on my computer and feeling my […]

New Zealand doesn’t have the best education system in the world. But it’s right up there.

I posted this video, made by the Secondary Teachers’ Union here in New Zealand last month. Among other things, it highlights that New Zealand’s education system is pretty awesome, and maybe we should try and get politicians to stop meddling with it. This morning, I tweeted about this article, which really shames the US, as being way […]

The BEST way to combine RSS feeds

I searched and searched for the answer to this questions. I found multiple services that were shut down and, to cut a long story short, it was a massive google fail. What RSS feeds are really useful. I’ll save an explanation for another post. This post is about combining them and republishing them. Why I […]

Apple retail service in New Zealand or: knocking on the vacuum cleaner salesman’s door

Someone was expressing their frustration to me about their iPhone the other day. “I know more about how to take care of my leather boots than I know about my (much more expensive) phone.” Chris Rawson, who writes for TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) has also complained about the process of trying to import what […]

iPads in Early Childhood Education

This is Orson: He’s 3. He has 3 older siblings and he simply refuses to believe that he has any limitations. He is capable of much because he has an awesome sense of self-belief. He was playing with my sister’s iPad a few months ago when he said, “Aunty: look!” He had removed all the […]

What eLearning needs does a Homeschooling family have, and how are they met?

Schools have a huge economy of scale and a requirement (of sorts) to have some basic IT resources. They must have: Devices for staff – in New Zealand, laptops under the TELA scheme Workstations for students – labs, COWs (computers on wheels, usually trolleys of netbooks), or (increasingly) BYOD. This stands for Bring Your Own […]

Make an iPhone 3GS run a little faster, crash less often and last longer

You’ve had your phone for a little over a year. It was awesome for the first 6 months or so, but then some of your friends got the iPhone 4 – which looks nicer and is much faster. Now, you’ve updated to iOS 5 and it’s getting really slow. The battery is terrible and you’re […]

Personal update: My New Job and the way forward

I have a day job! Yus! I’m starting work on the 4th at a small(ish) IT company providing a help desk service to a variety of clients – many of who are in Education. The aim is to get some IT cred in this role and then to move the clients into the LMS/PD area where […]